bring Will Underwood back to mind at all. They brought only the picture of a lean, wind-driven dreamer, who had tramped the moors all day for the pleasure of sharing his own thoughts with the wilderness. She recalled the look in his face when she had surprised him—the tired question in it, as if he were asking why circumstances had piled up so many odds against him; then the welcome, idolatrous almost in its completeness, that his eyes had given her when he realised that she was near, and after that the curt request that Will Underwood should ride with her, while he settled some difference with his brother.

A woman likes to be worshipped, likes a man to show fight on her behalf; and Nance, watching the stark, moonlit fields, for the first time felt a touch of something more than pity for the heir of Windyhough.

[24]

CHAPTER II THE NIGHT-RIDER

Down at Windyhough, where the old house thrust its gables up into the shelter of its firs and leafless sycamores, Sir Jasper Royd sat listening to the messenger who had ridden from Squire Roger’s. Lady Royd, who kept her beauty still at five-and-forty, and with it some air of girlish petulance and wilfulness, sat on the other side of the hearth. Oliphant of Muirhouse stood between them, after supping hastily, with the air of a man who cannot sit unless the saddle carries him.

Down

“We owe you a great debt for bringing in the news,” Sir Jasper was saying.

“I am not so sure of that, sir,” put in Lady Royd, with sharpness and a hint of coquetry. “You are robbing me of a husband.”

“Nay, surely,” said Oliphant, with a touch of his quick humour. “The Prince will restore him to you by and by. We’re all for Restoration these days, Lady Royd.”

“Oh, I know! And you’ve passed your wine over the water before you set lips to it. I know your jargon, Mr. Oliphant—but it is lives of men you are playing with.” A stronger note sounded in her spoiled, lazy voice; she glanced at her husband, asking him to understand her passion.

“Not playing with,” said the messenger, breaking an uneasy pause. “Lives of men were given them to use.”

“Yes, by gad!” broke in Sir Jasper unexpectedly. “I’m sixty, Mr. Oliphant, and the Prince needs me, and I feel a lad again. I’ve been fox-hunting here, and shooting, and what not, just to keep the rust out of my old 

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