Later the day would climb dustily to noon; now it had the wonder and the stillness of great beginnings.

A faint haze like a veil at the edges of the sky and a freshness of the air made the world magical to these two who rode high above weald and sea.

Stella looked downwards to the silver flash of the broad water west of Chichester spire.
"That way they came, perhaps on a day like this," she said slowly, "those old centurions." "Your thoughts go back," said Dick Hazlewood with a laugh.
"Not so far as you think," cried Stella, and suddenly her cheeks took fire and a smile dimpled them.

"Oh, I dare to think of many things to-day." She rode down the steep grass slope towards the race-course with Dick at her side.

It was the first morning they had ridden together since the night of the dinner-party at Little Beeding.