He glanced at her pale face, her hair hanging dank and wet about it, and saw that, even under these disadvantageous conditions, she had grown more beautiful than before. Of late he had heard of her--heard a good deal of her--but had never dreamed that they would meet again in that manner. "How did it happen?" he asked in pretence of ignorance of her companion's presence. She raised her fine eyes to his for a moment, and wavered beneath his inquiring gaze. "I--I--well, I really don't know," was her rather lame answer. "The bank was very slippery, and--well, I suppose I walked too near." Her reply struck him as curious. Why did she attempt to shield the man who, by his sudden flight, was self-convicted of an attempt upon her life? Felix Krail was not a complete stranger to her. Why had their meeting been a clandestine one? This, and a thousand similar queries ran through his mind as they walked across the field in the direction of a long, low, thatched farmhouse which stood in the distance. "I'm a complete stranger in these parts," Hamilton informed her. "I live nowadays mostly abroad, away above the Danube, and am only home for a holiday." "And I'm afraid you've completely spoilt your clothes," she laughed, looking at his wet, muddy trousers and boots. "Well, if I have, yours also are no further good." "Oh, my blouse will wash, and I shall send my skirt to the cleaners, and it will come back like new," she answered. "Women's outdoor clothing never suffers by a wetting. We'll get Mrs. Wyatt to dry them, and then I'll get home again to my aunt in Woodnewton. Do you know the place?" "I fancy I passed through it this morning. One of those long, lean villages, with a church at the end." "That's it--the dullest little place in all England, I believe." He was struck by her charm of manner. Though bedraggled and dishevelled, she was nevertheless delightful, and treated her sudden immersion with careless unconcern. Why had Krail attempted to get rid of her in that manner? What motive had he? They reached the farmhouse, where Mrs. Wyatt, a stout, ruddy-faced woman, detecting their approach, met them upon the threshold. "Lawks, Miss Heyburn! why, what's happened?" she asked in alarm. "I fell into the river, and this gentleman fished me out. That's all," laughed the girl. "We want to dry our things, if we may." In a few minutes, in bedrooms upstairs, they had exchanged their wet clothes for dry ones. Then Edgar in the farmer's Sunday suit of black, and Gabrielle in one of Mrs. Wyatt's stuff dresses, in the big folds of which her slim little figure was lost, met again in the spacious farmhouse-kitchen below. They laughed heartily at the ridiculous figure which each presented, and drank the glasses of hot milk which the farmer's wife pressed upon them.