Refusal spoke clearly in his tones, and as he replied Kingston felt again the same overpowering certainty that this was an acquaintance of long standing. Everything seemed violently, vividly familiar, yet nothing, no inflection, no feature, could he track down to its place in his memory. Besides, if his instinct had been true, surely the stranger must have shared it, and the offer of a lift would have led, as it was intended to do, towards a mutual recognition. But the boy evidently had no such feeling of acquaintance, and had declined the suggestion without the faintest hint that he had ever seen the motorist before. The whole coil must be a web of mere fancy. Kingston released the machine, which bounded gladly on, leaving the wayfarer behind in the shadow of the hill. Another instant, and they were on the summit. A blinding glory dazzled Kingston’s eyes. The whole atmosphere was one shimmering ripple of light. Beneath his feet, dim in the vibrating gold, lay the last two miles of level and plain. Indistinguishable, though close at hand among its woods, lay the redecorated house of the Restormels, where he was to dine that evening. And there, beyond, infinitely remote amid the vaporous radiance, rose Brakelond, far above the world, silhouetted in shades of purple against the devastating glare of the sunset. Wonderfully magical, wonderfully mystical in the last fires of the evening, seemed that fantastic vision of the Castle, fit haunt of old dead passions and splendours, the glowing casket of half a thousand memories, gorgeous, palpitating, terrible. For an instant he paused on the summit of the hill, gazing at that crown of wonder against the flaming west; then he gave the straining motor its head, and plunged downwards on the final stage of his journey. Soon, as he approached it, the Castle lost its mystery, grew solid, looming, earthly. Kingston suddenly realized that there, high up in her great vaulted room, its Lady Gundred was sitting in front of her mirror, having her hair done, and wondering whether her husband would arrive in time for dinner. The motor rushed fiercely up the last steep stages of the Castle hill, passed under the machicolated gateway, and came noisily to rest in the shadow of the Erechtheion. Kingston, thoroughly restored by now to prose and sanity, leaped hastily out, and went to his room to get ready. CHAPTER XVII