She would write to him--no, she would see him face to face before another day had passed, and tell him that she perceived how he had juggled with her, and that she declined to be bound to him by any tie. It was a comfort to her to reflect that she had need only to tell him to go to her father and ask his consent to her promising to marry him, and her separation from him would be complete, for she knew something of the ambition of her father, and that he had other views respecting her future than to marry her to a man who though perhaps possessing some power as the wire puller--the stage manager, as it were--of a political party, was far from being a match for the daughter of a man who hoped for a peerage. Mr. Clifton himself had been well aware of this fact, or he would not have imposed upon her that bondage of secrecy which had become so irksome to her. Yes, she would tell him that unless her father gave his consent, she would consider herself bound in no way to him--not even by that subtle silken cord of mutual faith, “mutual confidence holds us together,” was the phrase that he had employed. She laughed at the thought of it. “_Does it--does it?_” she thought, through her laugh. “_Well, perhaps--but----_” And then she started, hearing through the hum of the wild bees about the sweet briar of the grassy bank, the sound of a step on the track leading from the stile through the woods. She started and then her face flamed like the poppies at her feet, though she must have seen in a moment that the man who had vaulted over the rails of the stile was no stranger but only Pierce Winwood. And then he too started and his face--but his face being already the colour of a copper-beech was not susceptible of any poppy tint, although there is an inward blushing, just as there is an inward bleeding--far more fatal than the other. Then they both laughed, with their heads thrown back, after the manner of people who give themselves over to a laugh. It seemed that she was under the impression that an apology for her presence there was necessary, for there was more than an explanatory note in her voice while she said: “I had no idea that--why, I thought that you had gone to Marlow--I was in the garden but there was a horribly crowded steamer with a terrible Hampsteading crowd aboard and a whistle. I came out on the road and was amazed to find that I had never heard that a wheatfield is the most beautiful thing in the world. How is it that the people here have been talking on any other subject during the past few days? What else is there worth talking about in comparison with this?” She made a motion with her sunshade to include all the landscape. He did not look at the landscape: he was too busy looking at her.