"Then he may return at any moment ?" said she.
"At any moment, madam," was the grave reply.
She took her resolve.

"I will wait," she announced, to the man's increasing if undisplayed astonishment.

"Let my horse be seen to." He bowed his obedience, and she followed him--a slender, graceful figure in her dove-coloured riding-habit laced with silver--across the stone-flagged vestibule, through the cool gloom of the great hall, into the spacious library of which he held the door.
"Mistress Horton is following me," she informed the butler.

"Will you bring her to me when she comes ?" Bowing again in silent acquiescence, the white-haired servant closed the door and left her.

She stood in the centre of the great room, drawing off her riding-gloves, perturbed and frightened beyond all reason at finding herself for the first time under Mr.Wilding's roof.