Again the soft colour came into her face, and she threw him a glance from her dark blue eyes. If ever glance spoke of indignation, hers did. "What change can there be?" she breathed. "Rupert is ill again," she added in louder tones.
"Rupert!"
"At least, he is not well, and is at home to-day. But he is better than he was yesterday——"
"Here comes Octave," interrupted Emily.
George Ryle gathered up his reins. Shaking hands with Maude, he said a hasty good-bye to the other two, and cantered down the lane, lifting his hat to Miss Chattaway, who was coming up from a distance.
She was advancing quickly across the common, behind the fence on the other side of the lane. A tall, thin young woman, looking her full age of four or five-and-twenty, with the same leaden complexion as of yore, and the disagreeably sly grey eyes. She wore a puce silk paletot, and a brown hat trimmed with black lace; an unbecoming costume for one so tall.
"That was George Ryle!" she exclaimed, as she came up. "What brings him back already?"
"He found his brother away when he reached Oxford," was Maude's reply.
"I think he was very rude not to stop and speak to you, Octave," observed Emily Chattaway. "He saw you coming."
Octave made no reply. She mounted the stile and gazed after the horseman, apparently to see what direction he would take on reaching the end of the lane. Patiently watching, she saw him turn into another lane, which branched off to the left. Octave Chattaway jumped over the stile, and went swiftly across the field.