“If you wish the marriage to take place soon, I am content. I would like it to—to be—not very soon—not just yet,” she added, and seemed to be speaking against her own will, and as though in opposition to her own thoughts. “Still, whatever you arrange, I will willingly agree to. I prefer to leave it all to you, Helen, and you, Connie, and—and you, Johnny. But it might take place just before Helen goes away. That would be time enough, would it not?” “It was the very thing I was going to suggest,” Helen said. “In three months’ time then, Joan.” Joan bowed her head. “In three months’ time then,” she said. They were all three very silent as Johnny drove the little car back to Buddesby that evening. The sun was down, but the twilight lingered. Ellice sat crushed in between Johnny’s big bulk and Connie, and she would not have changed places with the queen on her throne. “There’s Rundle with that horrible lurcher dog of his,” said Johnny, and spoke more to make conversation than anything else. They could see the man, the village poacher, slouching along under a hedge with the ever-faithful dog close at heel. “A horrible, fierce-looking beast,” said Connie. “It fights with every dog in the place, and—” “But it loves him; it loves its master,” Ellice said passionately. “It would die for its master, wouldn’t it?” “Why, I daresay it would, Gipsy,” Johnny said. “But why so excited about it, little girl?” “If you—if you,” Ellice said, “had the offer of two dogs, the one splendid, a thoroughbred deerhound, graceful, beautiful, fine to look at, but cold and with no love to give its master, and the other—a hideous beast like Rundle’s lurcher—but a beast who could love and die for its master, and dying lick the hand of the master it loved, glad and grateful to—to die for him—which would you have, which would you have, Johnny?” Johnny was hardly listening. He was looking down the dusky road and seeing in imagination a face, the most beautiful, wonderful face that his world had ever held. “I don’t know, Gipsy girl,” he said. “I don’t know!” “No!” Ellice said; and her voice shook and quavered in an unnatural laugh. “You don’t know, Johnny; you don’t know!” And Connie, who heard and understood, shivered a little at the sound of the girl’s laughter. CHAPTER XXVIII “HE DOES NOT LOVE ME NOW” “Tom,” said Lady Linden, “is by no means a fool, Marjorie.” “No, aunt.” “He has ideas. I don’t say that they are brilliant, but he gets the germ of a plan into his brain. And now I will tell you what he suggests about Partridge’s cottage and land when the lease falls in.” Lady Linden proceeded to explain Tom Arundel’s idea, and Marjorie sat and stared out into the garden and thought of Hugh. Was he at Hurst Dormer now? If not, where was he? What was he doing? What was he thinking about? Did he still love her, or had he fallen in love with Joan? And, if he had, would he marry Joan? and if not.