Her lips tightened a little; she turned round and her fearless eyes met the speaker’s. “Thank you, Mr Sim; and I hope so too.” Her voice was cold and indifferent. “An’ no man will be welcomer there than you, Titus,” said Sweetland. “You an’ me will have many a good bit of sporting upalong, I hope.” “You’ll have something better to do than that, Dan,” said Minnie. “Sporting be very well for a bachelor, but work an’ wages must be the first thought come a man’s got a wife.” “No need to tell me that. I’ll work for ’e as hard as a horse; an’ well you know it.” A lodge rose beside them and Daniel pulled up at the main entrance to Middlecott. Noble gates of iron ascended here. Ancient leaden statues ornamented the four posts of this entrance, and one of them, a Diana, had a bullet wound under her left breast. Others among these figures were also peppered with small shot--the folly of bygone sportsmen of the Vivian clan. From the gates a wide avenue of Spanish chestnuts extended, and half a mile away, rising above the heads of stately conifers, stood Middlecott Court. Behind it, ridge on ridge, billowed the fringes of the Moor. The gate-lodge was Daniel Sweetland’s home, and the sound of wheels brought his mother from the door. Mrs Sweetland smiled as she saw Minnie, and came out and kissed her. “So you’m going up for to see the li’l house, my pretty? I do hope you’ll like it. ’Tis small but weather-proof, an’ all very nice an’ water-sweet.” “I shall like it very well, mother, if Dan likes it,” answered the girl. “Us will be back by eight o’clock or earlier, an’ Minnie will stay an’ eat a bit with us,” declared Daniel. Then he drove on and left his mother looking after them. Mr Sim had already started upon his way to the Hall. “Poor old Titus,” said Dan, as he walked by the trap presently to ease the horse at a stiff hill. “However did you come to like me best, Min?” “Who can tell?” “I wish, all the same, you thought kinder of him. You’m awful cold to the man.” “He makes me cold. For my part, I wish you didn’t like him so well as you do.” Dan grew rather red. “No man, nor woman neither, will ever stand between me an’ Titus Sim,” he said. “You might think ’twas jealousy,” she answered quietly, “for you are sun, an’ air, an’ life to me, Daniel. ’Tis my love quickens my heart. But I’m not jealous. Only I can’t pretend to care for him. I’ve got nought against him save a womanly, nameless dread. An’ why it’s in my heart I don’t know, for I ban’t one to mislike folks without a cause.” “Then best to get it out of your heart,” he said roughly. “You’m not used to talk nonsense. The man’s one in a thousand--kind, honest, gentle, an’ as good a shot as there is in the county. Straight as a line, too. Straighter than I be myself, for that matter. He’ve behaved very game over this, for well I know what it cost him to lose you.”