“Each and every day was one to be marked by a white stone,” he said, with an earnestness hardly befitting railway-carriage conversation.

“The wet ones, too?” she asked, pleasantly.

“Wet or dry, what was the difference?” he made bold to say.  “What did I care about the rain if I could go down to the Aivron or away up to the Geinig with you and old Robert?”

“You certainly were very brave about it,” she said, in the most friendly way; “you never once grumbled when the sandwiches got damp—­not once.”

And so the three of them kept gayly and carelessly talking and chatting together, as the long train thundered away to the south; while ever and anon they could turn their eyes to that changing phantasmagoria of the outer world that went whirling by the windows.  It was rather a wild-looking day, sometimes brightening with a wan glare of sunlight, but more often darkening until the country looked like a French landscape, in its sombre tones of gray and black and green.  Yet, nevertheless, there was a sort of picturesqueness in the brooding sky, the russet woods, the purple hedges, and the new-ploughed furrows; while now and again a distant mansion, set on a height, shone a fair yellow above its terraced lawn.  Scattered rooks swept down the wind and settled in a field.  The moorhens had forsaken the ruffled water of the ponds and sought shelter among the withered sedge.  Puffs of white steam from the engine flew across and were lost in the leafless trees.  Embankments suddenly showed themselves high in the air, and as suddenly dipped again; then there were long stretches of coppice, with red bracken, and a sprinkling of gold on the oaks.  To Lionel the time went by all too quickly; before he had said the half of what he wanted to say, behold! here they were at Preston Park.

“You are at least remaining over until to-morrow?” Lady Cunyngham asked him.

“Well, no,” said he, “I did not think of coming down until this morning, and so I had made no arrangements.  I should think it hardly likely there would be a vacant bedroom at the Orleans Club at this time of year—­no, in any case, I must get back by the 8.40 to-night.”

“And in the meantime,” she asked again, “have you any engagement?”

“None.  I dare say I shall have a stroll along the sea-front, and then drop in for lunch at the Orleans.”

“You might as well come down now and lunch with us,” said she, simply.

Lionel’s face brightened up amazingly; he had been looking forward to saying good-bye at the station with anything but joy.

“I should be delighted—­if I am not in the way,” was his prompt answer.

“Oh, Honnor and I are entirely by ourselves at present,” said this elderly lady with the silver-white hair.  “We are expecting Lady Adela and her sisters this week, however; and perhaps my son will come down later on.”

“Are they back from Scotland?”