Meg and the children, returning from their tea-party at the vicarage, were stopped continually in their journey through the main street by friendly folk who wanted to greet the children. It was quite a triumphal progress, and Meg was feeling particularly proud that afternoon, for her charges, including William, had all behaved beautifully. Little Fay had refrained from s.n.a.t.c.hing other children's belongings with the cool remark, "Plitty little Fay would like 'at"; Tony had been quite merry and approachable; and William had offered paws and submitted to continual pullings, pushings and draggings with exemplary patience.

Once through the friendly, dignified old street, they reached the main road, which was bordered by rough gra.s.s sloping to a ditch surmounted by a thick thorn hedge. They were rather late, and Meg was wheeling little Fay as fast as she could, Tony trotting beside her to keep up, when a motor horn was sounded behind them and a large car came along at a good speed. They were all well to the side of the road, but William--with the perverse stupidity of the young dog--above all, of the young bull-terrier--chose that precise moment to gambol aimlessly right into the path of the swiftly-coming motor, just as it seemed right upon him; and this, regardless of terrified shouts from Meg and the children, frantic sounding of the horn and violent language from the driver of the car.

It seemed that destruction must inevitably overtake William when the car swerved violently as the man ran it down the sloping bank, where it stuck, leaving William, unscathed and rather alarmed by all the clamour, to run back to his family.

Meg promptly whacked him as hard as she could, whereupon, much surprised, he turned over on his back, waving four paws feebly in the air.

"Why don't you keep your dog at the side?" the man shouted with very natural irritation as he descended from his seat.

"He's a naughty--stupid--puppy," Meg e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed between the whacks. "It wasn't your fault in the least, and it was awfully good of you to avoid him."--Whack--whack.

The man started a little as she spoke and came across the road towards them.

Meg raised a flushed face from her castigation of William, but the pretty colour faded quickly when she saw who the stranger was.

"Meg!" he exclaimed. "_You!_"

For a tense moment they stared at one another, while the children stared at the stranger. He was certainly a handsome man; melancholy, "interesting." Pale, with regular features and sleepy, smallish eyes set very near together.

"If you knew how I have searched for you," he said.

His voice was his great charm, and would have made his fortune on the stage. It could convey so much, could be so tender and beseeching, so charged with deepest sadness, so musical always.

"Your search cannot have been very arduous," Meg answered drily. "There has never been any mystery about my movements." And she looked him straight in the face.

"At first, I was afraid ... I did not try to find you."

"You were well-advised."

"Who is 'at sahib?" little Fay interrupted impatiently. "Let us go home." She had no use for any sahib who ignored her presence.

"Yes, we'd better be getting on," Meg said hurriedly, and seized the handle of the pram.

But he stood right in their path.

"You were very cruel," the musical voice went on. "You never seemed to give a thought to all _I_ was suffering."

Meg met the sleepy eyes, that used to thrill her very soul, with a look of scornful amus.e.m.e.nt in hers that was certainly the very last expression he had ever expected to see in them.

She had always dreaded this moment.

Realising the power this man had exercised over her, she always feared that should she meet him again the old glamour would surround him; the old domination be rea.s.serted. She forgot that in five years one's standards change.

Now that she did meet him she discovered that he held no bonds with which to bind her. That what she had dreaded was a chimera. The real Walter Brooke, the moment he appeared in the flesh, destroyed the image memory had set up; and Meg straightened her slender shoulders as though a heavy burden had dropped from them.

The whole thing pa.s.sed like a flash.

"You were very cruel," he repeated.

"There is no use going into all that," Meg answered in a cheerful, matter-of-fact tone. "Good-bye, Mr. Brooke. We are most grateful to you for not running over William, who is," here she raised her voice for the benefit of the culprit, "a naughty--tiresome dog."

"But you can't leave me like this. When can I see you again--there is so much I want to explain...."

"But I don't want any explanations, thank you. Come children, we _must_ go."

"Meg, listen ... surely you have some little feeling of kindness towards me ... after all that happened...."

He put his hand on Meg's arm to detain her, and William, who had never been known to show enmity to human creature, gave a deep growl and bristled. A growl so ominous and threatening that Meg hastily loosed the pram and caught him by the collar with both hands.

Tony saw that Meg was fl.u.s.tered and uncomfortable. "Why does he not go?"

he asked. "I thought he was a sahib, but I suppose he is the gharri-wallah. We have thanked him--does he want backsheesh? Give him a rupee."

"He _does_ want backsheesh," the deep, musical voice went on--"a little pity, a little common kindness."

It was an embarra.s.sing situation. William was straining at his collar and growling like an incipient thunderstorm.

"We have thanked you," Tony said again with dignity. "We have no money, or we would reward you. If you like to call at the house, Auntie Jan always has money."

The man smiled pleasantly at Tony.

"Thank you, young man. You have told me exactly what I wanted to know.

So you are with your friends?"

"I can't hold this dog much longer," Meg gasped. "If you don't go--you'll get bitten."

William ceased to growl, for far down the road he had heard a footstep that he knew. He still strained at his collar, but it was in a direction that led away from Mr. Walter Brooke. Meg let go and William swung off down the road.

"Shall we all have a lide in loo ghalli?" little Fay asked--it seemed to her sheer waste of time to stand arguing in the road when a good car was waiting empty. The children called every form of conveyance a "gharri."

"We shall meet again," said this persistent man. "You can't put me off like this."

He raised his voice, for he was angry, and its clear tones carried far down the quiet road.

"There's Captain Middleton with William," Tony said suddenly. "Perhaps _he_ has some money."

Meg paled and crimsoned, and with hands that trembled started to push the pram at a great pace.

The man went back to his car, and Tony, regardless of Meg's call to him, ran to meet William and Miles.

The back wheels of the car had sunk deeply into the soft wet turf. It refused to budge. Miles came up. He was long-sighted, and he had seen very well who it was that was talking to Meg in the road. He had also heard Mr. Brooke's last remark.

Till lately he had only known Walter Brooke enough to dislike him vaguely. Since his interview with Mrs. Trent this feeling had intensified to such an extent as surprised himself. At the present moment he was seething with rage, but all the same he went and helped to get the car up the bank, jacking it up, and setting his great shoulders against it to start it again.

All this Tony watched with deepest interest, and Meg waited, fuming, a little way down the road, for she knew it was hopeless to get Tony to come till the car had once started. Once on the hard road again, it bowled swiftly away and to her immense relief pa.s.sed her without stopping.

She saw that Miles was bringing Tony, and started on again with little Fay.