"Johnnie Dale? No, he has not run away. You will find him in the lane, where I saw him as we came through. Shall I find him for you?"
"No, thank you. Doubtless Lady Adela is impatient at your long stay," she said, walking coolly away from him.
"The deuce! I expect she is. I had quite forgotten the daughter of a hundred earls," he said to himself, ruefully. "I forget everything with Leonora West. She would not answer my question, yet I would give the world to know what she really thinks. If I had not promised De Vere a fair field, I would try to find out what she thought before the sun sets. How brusque she is! Ah!"
The last exclamation was wrung from him by seeing Leonora lift her hand as she walked across the field.
Something bright and shining flashed in the air a moment, then fell into the grass.
"She has thrown my gold piece away like so much dross! What does she mean?" he asked himself.
But the question was one not easily answered, so he returned to his friends, who were chattering like so many magpies among the ruins.
"We thought you had gone back home, you were so long away," said Lady Adela, looking rather cross.
"Now I shall have to invent some fiction to account for my long absence," he thought, pulling vexedly at his long mustache. "Deuce take the women! They pull one this way and that way, until one is out of patience!"