It was a sunny afternoon in early February when Usk arrived at the little wayside station near Llandiarmid. No one was expecting him, for the letter he had posted in New York, announcing his return, had travelled by the same vessel as himself, and had only reached the Castle that morning. At this moment it was lying on Lord Caerleon’s table, in company with the telegram Usk had sent from Liverpool on his arrival there; for Lord and Lady Caerleon had started at an unearthly hour in the morning on a long cold drive into Oldport, where a temperance convention was being held. Disregarding the stationmaster’s eager invitation to step into his office while he sent to the nearest farm and borrowed a trap to take his lordship up to the Castle, Usk left his luggage to be fetched later, and struck off across the fields. He had a feeling that if he met Félicia now, he would win her, and he hurried on, his country-trained senses noting the springing wheat in the autumn-sown fields, the pleasant smell of the rich red plough-lands, the brown and crimson buds in the hedges, and the twittering of the birds in the mild sunshine. Everything spoke of life and love and hope, and Usk whistled gaily for sheer gladness of heart as he renewed his acquaintance with the many short cuts, less remarkable for their shortness than their complexity, which he and Philippa had long ago discovered, and definitely laid down as the quickest way home. The shrubbery gate was locked, of course, but he had climbed the wall at this point too often for that to be any obstacle, and he went on up the well-known paths. At the long wild border under the sunny wall which marked the limits of the garden proper he cast an involuntary glance. Philippa would have been there, on such an afternoon as this, looking for early violets, or gathering handfuls of snowdrops from among the grass on the opposite side of the walk, and perhaps Félicia----? But Félicia was not to be seen, and he turned to the old arched doorway leading into the garden and rattled at it vigorously, nearly frightening the wits out of a meek gardener’s boy who was at work just inside, and opened the door timidly. On being questioned, however, the boy recovered his senses sufficiently to volunteer the remark that he ‘see one of the young ladies, the prettiest one, on the top terrace by herself about five minutes back,’ for which he received a munificent reward.