“Dan would be awfully angry if he knew—­it’s my duty, you see,” objected June, visibly weakening.

“If he knew!  But what a husband doesn’t know his heart doesn’t grieve over,” replied Gillian sagely.  “There, that’s settled.  Come along upstairs and let me tuck you up in your bed, and leave the rest to Coppertop and me.”

And June, with her heart suddenly warmed and comforted in the way in which an unexpected kindness does warm and comfort, went very willingly and, tired out in body and mind, fell asleep in ten minutes.

Meanwhile Magda had established herself in the hammock slung from the boughs of one of the great elms which shaded the garden.  She had brought a book with her, since her thoughts were none too pleasant company just at the moment, and was speedily absorbed in its contents.

It was very soothing and tranquil out there in the noonday heat.  The gnats hovered in the sunlight, dancing and whirling in little transient clusters; now and again a ladybird flickered by or a swallow swooped so near that his darting shadow fell across her book; while all about her sounded the pleasant hum of a summer’s day—­the soft susurration of the pleasant hum of a thousand insect voices blending into an indefinite, murmurous vibration of the air.

Occasionally the whir of a motor-car sweeping along the adjacent road broke harshly across the peaceful quiet.  Magda glanced up with some annoyance as the first one sped by, dragging her back to an unwilling sense of civilisation.  Then she bent her head resolutely above her book and declined to be distracted any further, finally losing herself completely in the story she was reading.

So it came about that when a long, low, dust-powdered car curved in between the granite gateposts of Stockleigh Farm and came abruptly to a standstill, she remained entirely oblivious of its advent.  Nor did she see the tall, slender-limbed man who had been driving, and whose questing hazel eyes had descried her almost immediately, slip from his seat behind the steering-wheel and come across the grass towards her.

“Antoine!”

The book fell from her hand and she sat up suddenly in the hammock.

“What on earth are you doing here?” she demanded.  There was no welcome in her tone.

For a moment Davilof remained watching her, the sunshine, slanting between the leaves of the trees, throwing queer little flickering lights into the hazel eyes and glinting on his golden-brown hair and beard.

“What are you doing here?” she repeated.

“I came—­to see you,” he said simply.

There was something disarming in the very simplicity of his reply.  It seemed to imply an almost child-like wonder that she should ask—­that there could possibly be any other reason for his presence.

But it failed to propitiate Magda in the slightest degree.  She felt intensely annoyed that anyone from the outside world—­from her world of London—­should have intruded upon her seclusion at Ashencombe, nor could she imagine how Davilof had discovered her retreat.