He saw the bright look he had observed shade, as it were, to one very earnest. The symbol of their two hands so strongly different quickened in Percival the appeal that he always felt in Rollo's company, that went back to the early years of their play together, that was vital part of this happy, lucky period, and that was warmed again in the thoughts that came to him as he had looked over the eastward valley. "Why, Rollo," he said earnestly, "it is good to think of. It is going to be good. We two down there. It's wonderful to me how it's all come out. It makes me 'tingly,' too, when I think of it--and of what it's going to be. Help you--why, we two--" He pressed the brown fist about the delicate hand. "There!--just like this good old Plowman's Ridge that shuts us off from everybody! Nothing comes past that to interfere with us." They were a moment silent, each in his different way occupied by this close exchange of their friendship; and Rollo's way made him almost at once put his horse about, concerned lest his face should betray his feelings, and made him say with an attempt at lightness: "No, nothing, with the good old Ridge to shut us off," and then, "Is that some one riding up from Upabbot?" The direction was that where Percival's gaze had been. "Yes, it is," Percival said. "I thought so. She's coming up. It's Dora." CHAPTER X TWO RIDE TOGETHER I Often in these weeks the three rode together; seldom Percival and Dora met out of Rollo's company. Brief moments while they waited him, brief moments when he rode ahead of them, these were the most frequent of their intimacies; more rarely came chance half-hours, and most rare of all half-hours planned when she admitted they could be contrived. He suffered nothing that their meetings should be thus fugitive and at caprice, in main, of Rollo's moods and movements. That none as yet should know their secret ministered to rather than chafed his ardour; that, when their eyes met, their eyes spoke what in all the world only they two knew, was of itself as darling a thing as when to all the world she should be known for his alone. Then she would be his own, but their secret the price of it; now he might not claim her, but ah, their secret, theirs!