"That was George Ryle!" she exclaimed, as she came up. "What brings him back already?" "He found his brother away when he reached Oxford," was Maude's reply. "I think he was very rude not to stop and speak to you, Octave," observed Emily Chattaway. "He saw you coming." Octave made no reply. She mounted the stile and gazed after the horseman, apparently to see what direction he would take on reaching the end of the lane. Patiently watching, she saw him turn into another lane, which branched off to the left. Octave Chattaway jumped over the stile, and went swiftly across the field. "She's gone to meet him," was Emily's comment. It was precisely what Miss Chattaway _had_ gone to do. Passing through a copse after quitting the field, she emerged from it just as George was riding quietly past. He halted and stopped to shake hands, as he had done with Maude. "You are out of breath, Octave. Have you been hastening to catch me?" "I need not have done so but for your gallantry in riding off the moment you saw me," she answered, resentfully. "I beg your pardon. I did not know you wanted me. And I am in a hurry." "It seems so--stopping to speak so long to the children and Maude," she returned, with irony. And George Ryle's laugh was a conscious one. Latent antagonism was seated in the minds of both, and a latent consciousness of it running through their hearts. When George Ryle saw Octave hastening across the common, he knew she was speeding to reach him ere he should be gone; when Octave saw him ride away, a voice whispered that he did so to avoid meeting her; and each felt that their secret thoughts and motives were known to the other. Yes, there was constant antagonism between them; if the word may be applied to Octave Chattaway, who had learnt to value the society of George Ryle more highly than was good for her. Did he so value hers? Octave wore out her heart, hoping for it. But in the midst of her unwise love for him, her never-ceasing efforts to be in his presence, near to him, there constantly arose the bitter conviction that he did not care for her. "I wished to ask you about the book you promised to get me," she said. "Have you procured it?" "No; and I am sorry to say that I cannot meet with it," replied George. "I thought of it at Oxford, and went into nearly every bookseller's shop in the place, unsuccessfully. I told you it was difficult to find. I must get them to write to London for it from Barmester." "Will you come to the Hold this evening?" she asked, as he was riding away. "Thank you. I am not sure that I can. My day or two's absence has made me busy." Octave Chattaway drew back under cover of the trees and halted: never retreating until every trace of that fine young horseman had passed out of sight. CHAPTER XII UNANSWERED