He glanced down at his horse's quivering sides. Back as far as one could see there was that regular line of hoof marks.
“Am I bad-tempered?” he asked.
“Well,” she observed, “I don't know you well enough to answer that question. I was simply thinking of yesterday evening.”
He slipped from his horse and stood before her. His long, severe face had seldom seemed more malevolent.
“I had enough to make me bad-tempered,” he declared. “I had tracked down a German spy, step by step, until I had him there, waiting for arrest—expecting it, even—and then I got that wicked message.”
“What was that wicked message after all?” she enquired.
“That doesn't matter,” he answered. “It was from a quarter where they ought to know better, and it ordered me to make no arrest. I have sent to the War Office to-day a full report, and I am praying that they may change their minds.”
Philippa sighed.
“If you hadn't received that telegram last night,” she observed, “it seems to me that I should have been a widow to-day.”
He frowned, and struck his boot heavily with his riding whip.