"To the fair, I suppose."

"At this hour; after nine o'clock?"

"S-s-h. He's coming back."

She drew closer. There was an air of mystery in this nocturnal bicycle ride that induced bewilderment. Martin's right hand still inclosed the girl's. What more natural than that his left arm should go around her waist, merely to emphasize the need for caution, concealment, secrecy?

Most certainly his knowledge of womankind was striding onward in seven-leagued boots.

The trot of a horse sounded sharply on the hard road. It was being ridden by someone in a hurry. The young scion of the Hall, who appeared to be killing time, inclined his machine to the opposite hedge.

But the rider pulled up with the skill of a practiced horseman. Even in the dim light the boy and girl recognized one of Mr. Beckett-Smythe's grooms.

"Is that you, Master Frank?" they heard him say.

"h.e.l.lo, Williams! What's up?"

"What's up, indeed! T' Squire has missed ye. A bonny row there'll be. Ye mun skip back lively, let me tell ye."

"Oh, the deuce!"

"Better lose nae mair time, Master Frank. I'll say I found ye yon side o' T' Elms."

"What has The Elms got to do with it?"

The man grinned.

"Noo, Master Frank, just mount an' be off in front. T' Squire thinks ye're efther that black-eyed la.s.s o' Mrs. Saumarez's. Don't try an'

humbug him. He telt me te lay my huntin'-crop across yer shoulders, but that's none o' my business. Off ye go!"

The heir, sulky and in deep tribulation, obeyed. They heard the horse's hoofbeats dying away rapidly.

Elsie, an exceedingly nice-mannered girl, was essentially feminine. The episode thrilled her, and pleased her, too, in some indefinable way, for her companion was holding her tightly.

"Just fancy that!" she whispered.

"Oh, he will only get a hiding."

"But, surely, he could not expect to meet Angle?"

"It looks like it. But why should we trouble about it?"

"I think it is horrid. But I must be going. Good-night--Martin."

He felt a gentle effort to loosen his clasp.

"Good-night, Elsie."

Their faces were very close. a.s.suredly, the boy must have been a trifle light-headed that day, for he bent and kissed her.

She tore herself from the encircling arm. Her cheeks were burning. At a little distance--a few feet--she halted.

"How dare you?" she cried.

He came to her with hands extended.

"Forgive me, Elsie; I couldn't help it."

"You must never, never do such a thing again."

He had nothing to say.

"Promise!" she cried, but her voice was less emphatic than she imagined.

"I won't," he said, and caught her arm.

"You--won't! How can you say such a thing?"

"Because I like you. I have known you for years, though we never spoke to each other until yesterday."

"Oh, dear! This is terrible! You frightened me so! I hope I didn't hurt your poor arms?"

"The pain was awful," he laughed.

The girl's heart was beating so frantically that she could almost hear its pulsations. The white bandages on Martin's wrists and hands aroused a tumult of emotion. The scene in the ghyll flashed before her eyes; she saw again the wild struggles of the snarling, tearing, biting animal, the boy's cool daring and endurance until he crushed the raging thing's life out of it and flung it away contemptuously.

An impulse came to her, and it was not to be repelled. She placed both hands on his shoulders and kissed him, quite fearlessly, on the lips.

"I think I owed you that," she said, with a little sob, and then ran away in good earnest, never turning her head until she was safe within the drawing-room.

Martin, his brain in a whirl and his blood on fire, closed the gate for himself. When the vicar came, half an hour later, his daughter was busy over the same book.

"What, Elsie! None of the maids home yet?" he cried.

"No, father, dear. But Martin Bolland brought these."

"Oh, our handkerchiefs. What did he say?"

"Nothing--of any importance. I understood that Dr. MacGregor caused the linen to be washed, but forgot to ask him why."

"Is that all?"

"Practically all, except that his arms and hands are all bound up, so I went with him as far as the gate. It is stiff, you know. And--yes--he has been reading 'Rokeby.' He likes it."

The vicar filled his pipe. He had had a trying day.

"Martin is a fine lad," he said. "I hope John Bolland will see fit to educate him. Such a youngster should not be allowed to vegetate in a village like this."

"Ah!" said Elsie, "that reminds me. He told me he was going away to school."