The white mist crept higher among the trees and the rain grew heavier. Billy shivered.
"We can't sit here," said the Baroness decidedly. "You'll have to ride Frivolity in front of me. I don't know where your pony is, and if he has galloped home they will be in a dreadful state. So we must hurry.
"How strong you are!" said Billy, admiringly, as she swung him up to the saddle in front of her—"and how kind!" He put his hand on hers that held the reins, her other arm was round him. Thus they rode home in the cold gloom of that November afternoon.
* * * * *
"Billy's late!" said his mother nervously as she poked the study fire. "I am always worried when he is out without Jackson; he is so reckless, and Jackson came home just before lunch, you know." Billy's father pushed his papers away from him, and came and stood beside her at the fire.
"There he is!" he said, "there's the drive gate."
"That's a horse; besides, Billy always goes straight to the yard—Oh, can he be hurt? and some one has come to tell us. Go down quick and see."
On no occasion did Billy ever go hunting but his mother pictured every possible mishap. Had the child ever realised her agony of apprehension he would never have gone; but she loved him too well to interfere with his pleasures. "He's such a manly little fellow," she would say when he came safely back, forgetting her dread in her pride of him—until next hunting day.
She followed her husband into the fire-lit hall. The door stood open. The well-loved little figure was silhouetted against the gloom, and the kind young voice was persuading some one to come in. "Do come and have some tea," she heard him say; then, as he saw his mother: "It's the dark lady, dear; she has been so kind to me. Has Dalgo come home?"
The mother went out on to the steps beside her husband. The unknown lady had already turned her horse preparatory to departure, but waited just to say in short, jerky sentences: