The man next him grunted.
"Who started the rumour that it wasn't an accident," he inquired; "but that life without Julia wasn't worth tuppence to him, and so—and so——?"
"Shut up, Parsley. Don't you circulate it," put in his neighbour hastily. "Heaven send Lady Henrietta hasn't got hold of that."
"By George, if the tale came to her ears——!"
The last man mended his pace. He had hung back a little.
"Rackham's bearing to the right," he struck in. "You can hear the horse trotting on the hill. He must be turning in to see Lady Henrietta. I wonder what on earth she wants him for. It was a rather portentous message."
They had reached a rougher bit of road and their voices grew indistinct, drowned in a tired clatter of horses' hoofs, and died away in the distance.
Rackham himself could not guess the reason for Lady Henrietta's summons. Latterly there had been war between him and his aunt. Something must have happened to mitigate the rigour of her ban, but he rather fancied the circumstances must be uncommon that could accomplish that. He was curious, and not the less so when, having left his horse to a bucket of gruel, he walked stiffly across from the stables, and letting himself in at the hall door, found himself face to face with another visitor, who had just arrived and was slipping off her furs.
"Julia!" he said, taken aback at her presence in this house. She acknowledged his amazement with a trickling laugh. Her voice had a note of melancholy importance.
"Is it so unnatural," she said reproachfully, "that you should find me here?"