She felt sorry for Lizzie Straker, because she guessed instinctively that Nature was playing her deep game even with this rebel. * * * * * CHAPTER XLII NATURE SMILES About eleven o’clock Lizzie Straker’s restlessness overflowed into action. She got up, whispered something to Joan Gaunt, and was about to push her way through the young fir trees when the elder woman called her back. “We must keep together.” “I can’t loaf about here any longer. I’m catching cold. And I promised to keep a look-out in the lane.” Joan Gaunt brought out her electric lamp and glanced at her watch. “It is only just eleven.” “He said he might be here early.” Obviously Lizzie Straker meant to have her way, and her having it meant that Joan and Eve had to break camp and move into the timber track that joined the lane. The night was fairly dark, but Joan Gaunt had taken care to scatter torn scraps of white paper between the clump of firs and the woodland track. A light wind had risen, and the black boughs of the firs swayed vaguely against the sky. The sandy track was banked with furze, broom, and young birch trees, and here and there between the heather were little islands of short sweet turf that had been nibbled by rabbits. Joan Gaunt and Eve spread their coats on one of these patches of turf, while Lizzie Straker went on towards the lane to watch for Galahad. Eve heard the turret clock at Fernhill strike twelve. The wind in the trees kept up a constant under-chant, so that the subdued humming of Kentucky’s car as it crept up the lane was hardly distinguishable from the wind-song overhead. Two beams of light swung into the dark colonnade, thrusting yellow rays in among the firs, and splashing on the gorse and heather. The big car was crawling dead slow, with Lizzie Straker standing on the step and holding on to one of the hood-brackets. Jones, the chauffeur, was driving. “Here we are.” Lizzie Straker jumped down excitedly. “It was a good thing I went. He’d have missed the end of the lane. Wouldn’t you, old sport?” “I was looking for you, you know, and not for sign-posts.” “Get along, sir! You’re not half serious enough.” “That’s good. And me asking for penal servitude and playing the hero.” He climbed out. “You had better turn her here, Jones, so that we shall have her nose pointing the right way if we have to get off in a hurry. Hallo, Miss Gaunt, you ought to be out in the Balkans doing the Florence Nightingale! What!” Lizzie Straker was keeping close to him, with that air of ownership that certain women assume towards men who are faithful to no particular woman. “Is Miss Carfax with you?” Lizzie laughed. “Rather! She’s here all right. We are going to make her do the lighting up to-night.” “Plenty of inflammable stuff here, Miss Carfax. You can include me if you like.” But the joke did not carry.