AT CHILCOMBE
Meantime Raymond had kept his promise and devoted some hours to Estelle's pleasure. The girl was proud of such an event, anticipated it for many days and won great delight from it when it came. She perceived, as they started, that her friend was perturbed and wondered dimly a moment as to what Sabina could have said to annoy him; but he appeared to recover quickly and was calm, cheerful and attentive to her chatter after they had gone a mile.
"To think you've never been to Chilcombe, Ray," she said. "You and father go galloping after foxes, or shooting the poor pheasants and partridges and don't care a bit for the wonderful tiny church at Chilcombe—the tiniest in England almost, I do believe. And then there's a beautiful thing in it—a splendid treasure; and many people think it was a piece of one of the ships of the Spanish Armada, that was wrecked on the Chesil Bank; and I dare say it is."
"You must tell me about it."
"I'm going to."
"Not walking too fast for you?"
"Not yet, but still you might go a little slower, or else I shall get out of breath and shan't be able to tell you about things."
He obeyed.
"There are no flowers for you to show me now," he said.
"No, but there are interesting things. For instance, away there to the right is a wonderful field. And the old story is that everything that is ever planted in it comes up red—red."