“You enjoy this rough walk,” he said shortly to her. “I think I do,” she answered. “But I should enjoy it more if I were sure I could telegraph from this Greater Thorpe.” “You wish to reassure your people?” “I do.” “If she would only say who they are!” he thought, but she did not. They could only converse when the wind lulled, which was not very often; it blew straight in their faces over the bare level land, and he had some trouble in recognizing the landmarks in the white obliteration of the always featureless landscape, and in avoiding the barbed wire fencing which had many a day cost him many an angry oath as he had hunted over those pastures. “I used to be a good deal in this country,” he said, as they at last left the wide level fields for a high road, and which was less exposed to the wind. “I used to hunt with the Vale of Thorpe hounds. I do not hunt anywhere now; and I have nothing now to bring me into the county since my cousin, Lord Roxhall, sold his place.” “Vale Royal?” “Yes? Do you know it?” “I have seen it.” “A fine old place, the biggest beeches in England, and a herd of wild cattle equal to the Chillingham. I only wish one of the red bulls would gore the wretched cad who has bought it, or perhaps in strict justice the bulls ought first to have gored Roxhall.” She did not reply; she was walking as easily and quickly as ever, though it was the fourth mile, and the cold of the bleak sunless day grew more intense as the hours wore away. “Vale Royal was given by Henry the Second to the Roxhalls of that time,” he continued. “My cousin wanted money, it is true; but not so desperately that he need have done so vile a thing. He was led into it. The man who has bought it is a brute from the Northwestern States; made his fortune in all kinds of foul ways, drinking-shops, gambling-saloons, cattle-trading, opium-dealing, cheating poor devils who landed with a little money and went to him for advice and concessions; an unspeakable rascal, who after thirty years’ infamy out there pulls himself together, praises God for all His mercies, and comes back to this country to go to church, sit in Parliament, wear a tall hat, and buy English society and English estates. Don’t you agree with me that it is utterly disgraceful?” She held her violets higher up to her face so that he saw nothing but her eyes, which were looking down the long straight white road which stretched out before them into a grey haze of fogs. “I quite agree with you,” she said in very clear and incisive tones. “I think it utterly disgraceful. But the disgrace is as much to the bought as the buyer.”