A little timber-and-plaster village peeps out from a tangle of plum-trees, and a way-side tavern, in comfortable recurrence, solicits concessions to the national custom of frequent refreshment.

Gordon Wright, who was a dogged pedestrian, always enjoyed doing his ten miles, and Longueville, who was an incorrigible stroller, felt a keen relish for the picturesqueness of the country.

But it was not, on this occasion, of the charms of the landscape or the pleasures of locomotion that they chiefly discoursed.
Their talk took a more closely personal turn.

It was a year since they had met, and there were many questions to ask and answer, many arrears of gossip to make up.

As they stretched themselves on the grass on a sun-warmed hill-side, beneath a great German oak whose arms were quiet in the blue summer air, there was a lively exchange of impressions, opinions, speculations, anecdotes.