She was slight and light, with a natural ease and quickness of gait, but she could not recall having run a yard since she had romped with Owen in his school-days; nor did she know what impulse moved her now. She only knew that run she must, that no other motion, short of flight, would have been buoyant enough for her humour. She seemed to be keeping pace with some inward rhythm, seeking to give bodily expression to the lyric rush of her thoughts. The earth always felt elastic under her, and she had a conscious joy in treading it; but never had it been as soft and springy as today. It seemed actually to rise and meet her as she went, so that she had the feeling, which sometimes came to her in dreams, of skimming miraculously over short bright waves. The air, too, seemed to break in waves against her, sweeping by on its current all the slanted lights and moist sharp perfumes of the failing day. She panted to herself: “This is nonsense!” her blood hummed back: “But it’s glorious!” and she sped on till she saw that Owen had caught sight of her and was striding back in her direction. Then she stopped and waited, flushed and laughing, her hands clasped against the letter in her breast. “No, I’m not mad,” she called out; “but there’s something in the air today--don’t you feel it?--And I wanted to have a little talk with you,” she added as he came up to her, smiling at him and linking her arm in his. He smiled back, but above the smile she saw the shade of anxiety which, for the last two months, had kept its fixed line between his handsome eyes. “Owen, don’t look like that! I don’t want you to!” she said imperiously. He laughed. “You said that exactly like Effie. What do you want me to do? To race with you as I do Effie? But I shouldn’t have a show!” he protested, still with the little frown between his eyes. “Where are you going?” she asked. “To the kennels. But there’s not the least need. The vet has seen Garry and he’s all right. If there’s anything you wanted to tell me----” “Did I say there was? I just came out to meet you--I wanted to know if you’d had good sport.” The shadow dropped on him again. “None at all. The fact is I didn’t try. Jean and I have just been knocking about in the woods. I wasn’t in a sanguinary mood.” They walked on with the same light gait, so nearly of a height that keeping step came as naturally to them as breathing. Anna stole another look at the young face on a level with her own. “You DID say there was something you wanted to tell me,” her step-son began after a pause. “Well, there is.” She slackened her pace involuntarily, and they came to a pause and stood facing each other under the limes. “Is Darrow coming?” he asked. She seldom blushed, but at the question a sudden heat suffused her. She held her head high.