Tallente reached the Manor about an hour and a half later, mud-splashed, wet and weary.

Robert followed him into the study and mixed him a whisky and soda.
"You've walked all the way back, sir ?" he remarked, with a note of protest in his tone.
"They offered me a car," Tallente admitted.

"I didn't want it.

I came down for fresh air and exercise." "Two very good things in their way, sir, but easily overdone," was the mild rejoinder.

"These hills are terrible unless you're at them all the time." Tallente drank his whisky and soda almost greedily and felt the benefit of it, although he was still weary.