The Downs were like floating islands, like fairy-laden vapours; solid, as Andrew Hedger's hour of eating; visionary, as too often his desire! Redworth muttered to himself, after taking the picture of the house and surrounding country from the sward, that he thought it about the sharpest night he had ever encountered in England.

He was cold, hungry, dispirited, and astoundingly stricken with an incapacity to separate any of his thoughts from old Andrew Hedger.

Nature was at her pranks upon him.
He left the garden briskly, as to the legs, and reluctantly.

He would have liked to know whether Diana had recently visited the house, or was expected.

It could be learnt in the morning; but his mission was urgent and he on the wings of it.