Soon afterwards they swerved away from the main road, obeying a signpost marked "Princetown."
"Glorious, isn't it?" murmured Janet, after a long silence which had succeeded the light chatter of herself and Alicia about children, servants, tennis, laundries.
He nodded, with a lively responsive smile, and glanced at Hilda's mysterious back. Only once during the journey had she looked round. Alicia with her coarse kind voice and laugh began to rally him, saying he had dozed.
A town, more granite than the moor itself, gradually revealed its roofs in the heart of the moor. The horses, indefatigable, quickened their speed. Villas, a school, a chapel, a heavy church-tower followed in succession; there were pavements; a brake full of excursionists had halted in front of a hotel; holiday-makers--simple folk who disliked to live in flocks--wandered in ecstatic idleness. Concealed within the warmth of the mountain air, there pricked a certain sharpness. All about, beyond the little town, the tors raised their shaggy flanks surmounted by colossal masses of stone that recalled the youth of the planet. The feel of the world was stimulating like a tremendous tonic. Then the wagonette passed a thick grove of trees, hiding a house, and in a moment, like magic, appeared a huge gated archway of brick and stone, and over it the incised words:
PARCERE SUBJECTIS
"Stop! Stop! Harry," cried Alicia shrilly. "What are you doing? You'll have to go to the house first."
"Shall I?" said Harry. "All right. Two thirty-five, be it noted."
The vehicle came to a standstill, and instantly clouds of vapour rose from the horses.
"Virgil!" thought Edwin, gazing at the archway, which filled him with sudden horror, like an obscenity misplaced.
II