“Could you order my horse, Oliver?  I think we ought to be going back.”

“Would you mind asking Sir James?” Marsham pointed to the upper terrace.  “I have something to see to in the garden.”

Diana said hurriedly that Mrs. Colwood would send the order to the stables, and that she herself would not be long.  Alicia took no notice of this remark.  She still looked at Oliver.

“You’ll come back with us, won’t you?”

Marsham flushed.  “I have only just arrived,” he said, rather sharply.  “Please don’t wait for me.—­Shall we go on?” he said, turning to Diana.

They walked on.  As Diana paused at the iron gate which closed the long walk, she looked round her involuntarily, and saw that Alicia and Fanny were now standing on the lower terrace, gazing after them.  It struck her as strange and rude, and she felt the slight shock she had felt several times already, both in her intercourse with Fanny and in her acquaintance with Miss Drake—­as of one unceremoniously jostled or repulsed.

Marsham meanwhile was full of annoyance.  That Alicia should still treat him in that domestic, possessive way—­and in Diana’s presence—­was really intolerable.  It must be stopped.

He paused on the other side of the gate.

“After all, I am not in a mood to see Robins to-day.  Look!—­the light is going.  Will you show me the path on to the hill?  You spoke to me once of a path you were fond of.”

She tried to laugh.

“You take Robins for granted?”

“I am quite indifferent to his virtues—­even his vices!  This chance—­is too precious.  I have so much to say to you.”

She led the way in silence.  The hand which held up her dress from the mire trembled a little unseen.  But her sense of the impending crisis had given her more rather than less dignity.  She bore her dark head finely, with that unconscious long-descended instinct of the woman, waiting to be sued.

They found a path beyond the garden, winding up through a leafless wood.  Marsham talked of indifferent things, and she answered him with spirit, feeling it all, so far, a queer piece of acting.  Then they emerged on the side of the hill beside a little basin in the chalk, where a gnarled thorn or two, an overhanging beech, and a bed of withered heather, made a kind of intimate, furnished place, which appealed to the passer-by.

“Here is the sunset,” said Marsham, looking round him.  “Are you afraid to sit a little?”

He took a light overcoat he had been carrying over his arm and spread it on the heather.  She protested that it was winter, and coats were for wearing.  He took no notice, and she tamely submitted.  He placed her regally, with an old thorn for support and canopy; and then he stood a moment beside her gazing westward.

They looked over undulations of the chalk, bare stubble fields and climbing woods, bathed in the pale gold of a February sunset.  The light was pure and wan—­the resting earth shone through it gently yet austerely; only the great woods darkly massed on the horizon gave an accent of mysterious power to a scene in which Nature otherwise showed herself the tamed and homely servant of men.  Below were the trees of Beechcote, the gray walls, and the windows touched with a last festal gleam.