Oh, what a happy voyage that was, over the summer sea! They sat side by side upon the bridge, sheltered from wind and sun, and talked the happy nonsense lovers talk: but which can hardly be so sweet between lovers whose youth and childhood have been spent far apart, as between these two who had been reared amidst the same sylvan world, and had every desire and every thought in unison. How brief the voyage seemed. It was but an hour or so since Roderick had been buying peaches and grapes, as they lay at the end of the pier at Guernsey, and here were the Needles and the chalky cliffs and undulating downs of the Wight. The Wight! That meant Hampshire and home! "How often those downs have been our weather-glass, Rorie, when we have been riding across the hills between Lyndhurst and Beaulieu," said Vixen. She had a world of questions to ask him about all that had happened during her exile. She almost expected to hear that Lyndhurst steeple had fallen; that the hounds had died of old age; that the Knightwood Oak had been struck by lightning; or that some among those calamities which time naturally brings had befallen the surroundings of her home. It was the strangest thing in the world to hear that nothing had happened, that everything was exactly the same as it had been when she went away. That dreary year of exile had seemed long enough for earthquakes and destructions, or even for slow decay. "Do you know what became of Arion?" asked Vixen, almost afraid to shape the question. "Oh, I believe he was sold, soon after you left home," Rorie answered carelessly. "Sold!" echoed Vixen drearily. "Poor dear thing! Yes, I felt sure Captain Winstanley would sell him. But I hoped----" "What?" "That some one I knew might buy him. Lord Mallow perhaps." "Lord Mallow! Ah, you thought he would buy your horse, for love of the rider. But you see constancy isn't one of that noble Irishman's virtues. He loves and he rides away--when the lady won't have him, bien entendu. No, Arion was sent up to Tattersall's, and disposed of in the usual way. Some fellow bought him for a covert hack." "I hope the man wasn't a heavy weight," exclaimed Vixen, almost in tears. She thought Rorie was horribly unfeeling. "What does it matter? A horse must earn his salt." "I had rather my poor pet had been shot, and buried in one of the meadows at home," said Vixen plaintively. "Captain Winstanley was too wise to allow that. Your poor pet fetched a hundred and forty-five guineas under the hammer." "I don't think it is very kind of you to talk of him so lightly," said Vixen. This was the only little cloud that came between them in all the voyage. Long before sunset they were steaming into Southampton Water, and the yellow light was still shining on the furzy levels, when the brougham that contained Vixen and her fortunes drove along the road to Lyndhurst.