The day was delicately bright and hot. Across a pale moon that looked herself no more than a stationary cloud, little wilful vapours which had broken away from larger masses were sailing. Red cattle, satisfied with their rich flowery pastures, had gathered under the hedges to chew the cud and sleepily whisk away the flies. The brown water hurried along, washing long grass, and shining up at meadow-sweet and purple clusters of loosestrife. There were cool flashing lights, and tender depths of colour, and a sweet content over everything, and poor Winifred growing sadder and sadder with the sense of contrast, yet walking more slowly and looking wistfully at the long grass, with a vague longing to lie down in it, and let everything go by and away forever. It might have been this which, as she went towards a little wooden bridge crossing the stream into the wood, deafened her ears to a step until Anthony Miles himself was close to her. The instant before she had believed herself safe with the patient cattle and the water and her own sad thoughts, and it cost her a struggle to master the tumult into which her feelings were suddenly stirred. But Anthony was too much absorbed in his own thoughts to notice any disturbance, and as matters had not yet come to such a pass that they could meet in a lonely meadow and go by without greeting, he put out his hand, and said,-- "Are you going into the wood? You will find it very hot even there. A thunder-storm would be a real comfort." "O, I like this sort of day!" said Winifred, with a hurrying desire to prove her own perfect contentment. "Everything is looking most beautiful I see Sniff is as fond as ever of the water--" She hesitated suddenly, there being a certain awkwardness quick to make itself felt in any allusion to the past, however slight; but Anthony said carelessly,-- "Sniff was due at Oakham, but as my mother seems to want him more than Marion, I shall not send him." "Is Marion quite well?" "Quite well, thank you." It was all so commonplace, and the moment had given her so much strength, that Winifred made a desperate resolution. "I have just been told something," she said, looking straight in his face and smiling. "I hear that you are going to marry Miss Lovell. Please let me congratulate you, unless it is too soon." There was a flush on her cheek, and her words ended with an odd ring of hardness, but no one would have been likely to read these little signs. Anthony looked at her more kindly than he had yet done, and said "Thank you" gravely.