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Peg, however, was not annoyed. She had imagined Ruth resting in the garden and had not had the heart to disturb her. When Ruth entered the kitchen she found her father in his chair by the window strangely elated in comparison with his mood of the morning.

“Ruth,” he said, as soon as she had closed the door behind her, “what do you think of the news?”

“What news?”

“That Travayne has bought the place,” Farday replied. “I had no idea it was for sale. Had you?”

“Yes, I had heard,” Ruth admitted, feeling that the sale of Conningscliff alone was not responsible for the gleam in her father’s eyes. “Has—John been in to see you?” she asked.

William Farday patted the seat beside him.

“Come over and sit down a minute, lass,” he invited. “There’s

a lot to discuss between thee and me.’'

Ruth drew her chair up beside him and sat down with her back to the window.

“Yes?” she prompted.

“Ruth—Travayne’s one of the best!” the farmer began, and was momentarily surprised at the restless movement his daughter made at the remark. “ I know you think that, too,” he continued, with quiet emphasis, “and you’ll appreciate to the full all he’s doing for us. He came here to-day to tell me that a friend of his— some great doctor in London—is coming to Newcastle to perform a big operation, and Travayne wants him to see me at the same time. ” The farmer’s words, urgent with hope, fell into the silence of the room as Ruth continued to sit motionless. The crackle of the fire rose in her ears like the roar of a furnace against the stillness, yet she did not move.

“He thinks there may be just a chance—his friend may be able to do something for me.”

There was almost entreaty in her father’s voice, as if he begged her to add her hope to his own. To walk again! She could hear his spirit shout it. To walk—to get back to the land once more! And John Travayne had held out this hope to him.

“When did John—make this offer?” she asked unsteadily. “Less than half an hour ago.” Farday was eager to tell her every word that had transpired at that short interview. “ I wanted him to stay to have some tea, but he said he had to catch the five o’clock ’bus from the village and wouldn’t wait. He said he had seen you before he came in.”

“Yes—he saw me!”

The confession was almost a cry. The fact that John had made this offer to her father after her impassioned outburst rose before her accusingly. He had offered her father the chance to live again. Her heart felt as if it had turned over in her breast. What if she had spoiled that chance! If John Travayne had been small and petty he might not have made his offer after the scene in the dairy. At that moment she wanted to rush to him and beg his forgiveness, but she knew that it was too late now. She had had her say, and how paltry he must think her!

“He’s doing all he can for us, Ruth,” her father was saying. “He won’t let us leave here—says it’s our home, one way or the other, but if this fellow does manage to patch me up, Travayne says he’ll be as good a landlord as the Squire. He means me to farm Conningscliff again, if I get better.”

If I get better! It was a cry from the soul of the man. Ruth stumbled to her feet and bent over his chair, smoothing the iron-grey hair.

“Of course you’ll get better,” she said huskily. “We’ll do everything—everything!”

Then, because she could bear no more, she turned and went swiftly from the room and the house, seeking the quiet of the lonely cliff face, where she had fought out so many battles in the past.

The sea was calm and unruffled, and she sat down on the very edge of the cliff, gazing over at the great columns of rock which sank down into the green waters below. It was dark down there, and full of shadows, with the eerie cry of the gulls and the low note of the oyster-catcher rising into the still air like ghost voices. To-night, however, the familiar scene held no peace for her tired spirit. Even the cliffs seemed hostile as they towered around her, and the sea-birds screamed away from her as they flew out across the water. For the first time in her life she found no peace in solitude, for her thoughts and emotions were too conflicting and self-accusing to permit of any tranquillity of mind.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Edmund Hersheil tightened the rein and pulled his horse’s head back almost savagely.

“Keep still, you restless brute!” he muttered, as he dug his heels into the soft flank. “It’s high time I took it into my head to teach you a lesson!”

The Firebrand’s ears were laid flat against his shapely head, and the sensitive nostrils began to quiver. Far from being a bad horse originally, its temper had been broken years ago by unsympathetic handling, but Edmund flattered himself that he could deal with any horse, and was ever ready to boast that the more vicious a beast proved itself the greater pleasure he derived from curbing its temper. He had ridden the Firebrand fairly constantly since he had come to Carbay Hall, and although the head groom had told him repeatedly that there comes a time when every “killer” horse gets the upper hand of its rider, he had laughed the idea to scorn.

To-day, however, he admitted that the animal was more than usually difficult to handle. It plunged and reared, turning in its tracks and wheeling round like some mad thing, the determination

to unseat its rider plain in the little bloodshot eyes.

As far as horses were concerned, Edmund’s pluck had to be admired. If the Firebrand was determined, he was equally determined. He stuck to his seat while the animal sent the soft sand of the cliff path flying from its dancing hooves. For fully ten minutes the struggle between man and horse continued, and then with a final desperate effort the Firebrand plunged forward and threw himself up on his hind legs in an almost instantaneous movement.

Hersheil went back, and for a moment it looked as if the horse had succeeded in unseating him. The Firebrand took to his heels, sure of victory now, and flew along the uneven path. Rider and horse were as one as Edmund clung to the animal’s back, striving to regain his seat, and by sheer tenacity of purpose he won.

With a vicious shriek of rage the Firebrand flew on, but he knew himself conquered, and by the time the first roofs of Carbay village had appeared above the dunes, Edmund had reduced the frenzied race to a gallop. He was almost as flecked with foam as the panting horse, but there was a gleam of fiendish satisfaction in his eyes and his teeth were bared in a conqueror’s smile.

Meanwhile, back on the cliff road, a big white car was making its way slowly across the dunes. Valerie Grenton sat at the wheel gazing absently along the deserted track while her companion looked nervously at the small margin of tufty grass which divided them from the drop over the cliffs.

“It’s senseless to be so nervy, Amelia,” Valerie said. “You’ve driven with me long enough now to know that I’m perfectly safe as long as I keep my eye on the road!” She gave a little rippling laugh. “Even Victor Monset drives with me now without keeping one hand on the door, ready to jump out!”

Miss Strayte smiled half-heartedly.

“I suppose it’s safe enough,” she replied doubtfully, “but it seems a long drop—if anything went wrong with the car, I mean.”

“How diplomatic of you, Strayty!” Valerie laughed. “All the same, I know you mean if I lost my head or something! However, I wouldn’t worry, if I were you. There’s absolutely nothing to lose one’s head about round here.”

“Are you going to accept the Colonel’s invitation to stay another week?” Miss Strayte asked.

Valerie hesitated.

“I don’t know, Amelia,” she said thoughtfully. “That all depends.”

“On ...?” Miss Strayte asked, without much enthusiasm.

“Oh—lots of things!”—airily. “But there! I’m wasting your time and mine if I attempt to explain. You wouldn’t understand!”

“I might try to,” Miss Strayte offered helpfully.

Valerie slowed the car until they were travelling at little more than walking pace. Her expression was more serious now.

“Amelia,” she said, “how much can one change?”

“Change?” Miss Strayte echoed. “In what way?”

“In every way! In the way you look at life—in ideals and— well, in character, I suppose I mean. Right deep down inside, Amelia!”

Miss Strayte looked slightly taken aback. Then, because she had lived in intimate connection with the girl for so long and knew her, perhaps, better than anyone else, light began to break upon Amelia Strayte. She thought, romantically, that she had known all along that when
real
love came to Valerie it would have just such an effect. Amelia cast round in her mind for the probable author of the change, and guessed rightly that the man was Victor Monset. Almost in spite of herself, Valerie had been won over.

“Of course one can change,” she hastened to assure the girl by her side. “Very quickly, too—in certain circumstances.”

“And the ‘certain circumstances’?” Valerie probed.

“Well—” For a moment Miss Strayte hesitated, at a loss for the correct words. “Well—suppose you were to fall in love with the right person. I would say that might make a considerable difference.”

“Oh, Strayty! You’re priceless!” Valerie laughed. “All the same, I think you’re right this time. I’m falling in love with a man who has proposed to me a dozen times in the past and who might not want to propose to me in the future because I’ve gone out of my way to let him see how futile it all is!”

She pressed her foot down on the accelerator and drove in silence for half a mile. Then, rounding a bend on the narrow track, she pulled up abruptly.

“Hullo! What’s been going on here?”

They both stared out at the churned sand and the marks of a horse’s hooves on the soft earth.

“It looks as if someone has been having difficulty with a fractious horse,” Miss Strayte said.

Valerie Grenton’s face went suddenly white.

“It might have been Victor,” she cried. “He often rides out

this way.”

She closed her eyes as a vision of a runaway horse and an inexperienced rider flashed through her mind.

“Look!” Miss Strayte cried. “There’s something lying over there—a purse or something.”

Valerie brought the car to a standstill and was out and across the strip of short grass in a few seconds. She bent down and picked up the object which her companion had pointed out.

“It’s a wallet,” she said, and her fingers shook perceptibly as she carried it back to the car.

She had little doubt that the wallet she held was the property of the rider whose horse had ploughed up the sand and although she could not recognise it as belonging to Victor Monset, she hesitated to open it lest her fears for the man she had come to care for should prove to have some foundation. The wallet had obviously dropped from the rider’s pocket in the struggle between horse and man. If she discovered it to be Victor’s there could be no doubt as to what had happened. She glanced towards the cliff face and shivered.

“Hadn’t we better open it and see if there’s a name inside?” Miss Strayte asked.

Valerie complied silently.

Inside the wallet were two letters, and with a sigh of infinite relief, she saw that they were addressed to Edmund Hersheil at Carbay Hall.

“It's been Edmund Hersheil,” she said, her face clearing. “I don’t think anything serious will have happened. He can handle a horse magnificently.”

She glanced down at the wallet again, turning the other contents over idly. Two bills, a few visiting cards with Hersheil’s name engraved upon them, three or four pounds in the note compartment—yes, undoubtedly it was Edmund’s wallet. Valerie was about to close it again when a photograph caught her eye.

“Good heavens!” she exclaimed. “It’s John Travayne!” Miss

Strayte was looking over her shoulder.

“A remarkable likeness,” she said, “but surely a little younger than Mr. Travayne?”

Valerie did not answer immediately. She continued to gaze at the photograph and her quick brain was working. It was an old photograph, faded at the edges. She turned it over and read on the back in a woman’s handwriting: “My son, John Veycourt.”

Valerie picked up the last paper which lay in Edmund Hersheil’s wallet. It looked like a birth certificate, she mused, as she unfolded it carefully. Yes, it was, but one glance told her that it had no connection with Edmund Hersheil. Her eyes fell on the name Travayne, and instantly her expression changed. Here was a mystery—something exciting—a situation after her own heart! Without compunction she searched the rest of the wallet, and had to confess herself vaguely disappointed when it yielded no further information.

Yet there was undoubtedly something strange about the fact that Edmund Hersheil saw fit to carry someone else’s birth certificate round with him, and to keep a photograph that bore a striking resemblance to John Travayne. In fact, considering the name Travayne on the birth certificate, Valerie came very easily to the conclusion that it
was
John Travayne.

At the back of her mind a thought began to stir—a vague memory of something she had heard about the Squire of Carbay Hall having a son of his own. Yes, she remembered, there had been a quarrel and the boy had gone abroad. Valerie drew in her breath excitedly. John Travayne had come from India! It was possible. It was just possible!