At last, a quarter of an hour late, she appeared. He heard the soft patter of Gritty’s hoofs on the turf outside, and the pair drew into sight. Even seen so, her figure dusk against the light, his mistress brought to Brion’s heart the thrill of delighted surprise she for ever conveyed. He never saw her afresh but she seemed a new thing to him, lovelier and more winsome than when last encountered. And now she was new in fact, at least as regarded her habit. Like the young spirit of the Spring she came to him all in tender green, an orchard sweetness in her face, and her eyes were the first speedwells of the year. A hood fell loosely back from her fair head, as its sheath slips from a blossom, and her feet gave life to the barren carpet of dead leaves, greening it where they fell. So she came to him, moving with the unhurried gladness that was her way, and he had a hard ado to temper his welcome with even the show of severity her lateness called for. He had not, for precaution’s sake, gone to meet her, but had waited while she tethered the little ass to a branch on the outskirts of the grove; and now he stood erect, as she greeted him in her soft voice, and with half eager, half fearful eyes:-- ‘Have you in truth found a way, Brion?’ ‘Mayhap a way,’ he answered, ‘if we are left to take it. The sun will be through in a little, enough to reveal our meeting should any chance to be looking.’ Struck by something in his tone, and perhaps by his apparent failure to observe her half proffered hands, she moved a little back, her lips parted, her eyes full of a questioning wonder. ‘Was this mist, then, of thy bespeaking,’ she said, ‘and engaged to us up to a certain hour? You speak as if I should have remembered that.’ ‘I speak like one keeping an appointment,’ he answered. She searched his face for humour, but discovered none. ‘Brion,’ she said suddenly, ‘am I late to our tryst?’ ‘A man might consider so,’ he replied stiffly. ‘But only by a few minutes?’ ‘Say fifteen, Mistress--nothing to a lady that holds the terrors of this wood at naught.’ Her face was lifted to his. The dimples threatened a moment, but she controlled them. ‘I had not thought of that. It must have been dreadful for you waiting here alone.’ ‘You do not think so, I can see.’ ‘Brion, don’t be cross with me.’ Her tone, her attitude were so sweet and coaxing, he could resist no longer. He put his hands on her shoulders. ‘You want to laugh, Joan. Well, laugh, a’God’s name, since it is like birds in sunlight to see and hear you.’ ‘Well, I will not, lest it hurt you.’ ‘Why, thou art laughing now. Has this place, indeed, no fears for you?’ ‘Why should it? I have done no evil in it.’ ‘That is true, Joan, and a truth that shames me. Conscience should fear no spectres but its own. What made you late?’ ‘Nothing but the mist itself: I must needs pick my way at first. So, if the mist was part of your plan and procuring, you are the one to blame.’