A straggling passion vine near the gate beat and struggled against the wind.

Clarence had stopped near it, and was gazing with worried abstraction across the tossing fields, when a soft voice called his name.
It was a pleasant voice,--Mrs.Peyton's.

He glanced back at the gateway; it was empty.

He looked quickly to the right and left; no one was there.
The voice spoke again with the musical addition of a laugh; it seemed to come from the passion vine.

Ah, yes; behind it, and half overgrown by its branches, was a long, narrow embrasured opening in the wall, defended by the usual Spanish grating, and still further back, as in the frame of a picture, the half length figure of Mrs.Peyton, very handsome and striking, too, with a painted picturesqueness from the effect of the checkered light and shade.
"You looked so tired and bored out there," she said.