Her daughter met me at Haslemere, cool and pink and smiling in the sunshine. It is the loveliest picture in my mind (no, nearly the loveliest) that quiet country railway station with June and the sunshine mingling together into a blaze of welcome. We conversed for a few moments in that eager unimportant way that always heralds the important. Had I minded coming? Should we hire a car to take us over the ridge to the Valley? She preferred walking—it was only three miles or so.... Very well, we would walk.
And we walked. Everything she said and everything I said has that winsome background of sunlight and red roofs and green lanes. We were in shadow when I said: "It's good news that I'm to hear, anyway. That relieves my anxiety, but not my curiosity."
Then we came out of the shadow into a yellow blaze of roadway, and she answered: "Yes, it's good news. It's more than good—it's marvellous."
"He took it well, then, when you told him?"
"Oh." And we passed into the shadow again. "I didn't need to tell him. He knew already."
"Really?"
"He'd seen one of the newspapers.... Odd, wasn't it?" She glanced at me quizzically. "You said he never read them."
"We both said so. The headlines must have caught his eye.... But tell me what happened."
"I will, if you'll give me the chance." She paused, and for a moment we walked on in a rather queer silence. Then suddenly the trees by the roadside gave way, and a blaze of sunshine enfiladed us. That seemed to give her impulse to continue. She said abruptly: "The fact is, Hilton, he hasn't the remotest idea that Karelsky's been thieving from him at all."
"But——"