As she neared the Maumsey gate, suddenly a sound—a voice—a tall figure in the twilight.
"Ah, there you are!" said Winnington. "Lady Tonbridge sent me to look for you."
"Aren't you back very early?" Delia attempted her usual voice. But the man who joined her at once detected the note of effort, of tired pre-occupation.
"Yes—our business collapsed. Our clerk's too good—leaves us nothing to do. So I've been having a talk with Lady Tonbridge."
Delia was startled; not by the words, but by the manner of them. While she seemed to Winnington to be thinking of something other than the moment—the actual moment, her impression was the precise opposite, as of a sharp, intense consciousness of the moment in him, which presently communicated its own emotion to her.
They walked up the drive together.
"At last I have got a horse for you," said Winnington, after a pause.
"Shall I bring it to-morrow? Weston is going on so well to-night,
France tells me, that he may be able to say 'out of danger' to-morrow.
If so, let me take you far afield, into the Forest. We might have a
jolly run."
Delia hesitated. It was very good of him. But she was out of practice.
She hadn't ridden for a long time.
Winnington laughed aloud. He told—deliberately—a tale of a young lady on a black mare, whom no one else could ride—of a Valkyrie—a Brunhilde—who had exchanged a Tyrolese hotel for a forest lodge, and ranged the wide world alone—
"Oh!"—cried Delia, "where did you hear that?"