"There's no use waiting any longer," he said. "Mrs. Ledwith and my fool of an aunt are coming to-morrow. Did you know that? Well, they are. And every dirty newspaper in town will make the matter insidiously significant! If my aunt hadn't taken it into her head to visit Mrs. Ledwith at this particular moment, there would have been few comments. As it is there'll be plenty--and I don't feel like putting up with them--I don't propose to for my own sake. The time comes, sooner or later, when a man has got to consider himself." After a short silence Strelsa raised her gray eyes: "Has it occurred to you to consider, me, Langly?" "What? Certainly. Haven't I been doing that ever since we've been engaged----" "I--wonder," she mused. "What else have I been doing?" he insisted--"denying myself the pleasure of you when I'm half crazy about you----" "What!" A dull flush settled under his prominent cheek-bones: he looked straight ahead of him between his horse's ears as he rode, sitting his saddle like the perfect horseman he was, although his mount felt the savage pain of a sudden and reasonless spurring and the wicked curb scarcely controlled him. Strelsa set her lips, not looking at either horse or man on her right, nor even noticing her own mare who was cutting up in sympathy with the outraged hunter at her withers. "Langly?" "Yes?" "Has it ever occurred to you how painful such scandalous rumours must be for Mrs. Ledwith?" "Can I help them?" Strelsa said, thoughtfully: "What a horrible thing for a woman! It was generous of your aunt to show people what _she_ thought of such cruel stories." "Do you think," he said sneeringly, "that my excellent aunt was inspired by any such motive? You might as well know--if you don't know already--" and his pale eyes rested a moment on the girl beside him--"that my aunt is visiting Mrs. Ledwith solely to embarrass me!" "How could it embarrass you?" "By giving colour to the lies told about me and the Ledwiths," he said in a hard voice--"by hinting that Mary Ledwith, free to marry, is accepted by my aunt; and the rest is up to me! That's what that female relative of mine has just done--" His big, white teeth closed with a click and he spurred his horse cruelly again and checked him until the slavering creature almost reared over backward. "If you maltreat that horse again, Langly, I'll leave you. Do you understand?" she said, exasperated. "I beg your pardon--" Again his jaw fairly snapped, but the horse did not suffer from his displeasure. "What has enraged you so?" she demanded. "This whole business. There isn't anything my aunt could have done more vicious, more contemptible, than to visit Mrs. Ledwith at this moment. I'll get it from every quarter, now." "I suppose she will, too." "My aunt? No such luck!" "I mean Mrs. Ledwith." "She? Oh, I suppose so." Strelsa said between tightening lips: "Is there nothing you can do, no kindness, no sacrifice you can make to shield Mrs. Ledwith?"