"Don't be angry," said a well-known voice; "I believe it's the rule of the game. If it isn't I'm sure it ought to be."

A hand, at once strong and gentle, took off the handkerchief, and in the soft woodland twilight she looked up at Roderick Vawdrey's face, looking down upon her with an expression which she presumed must mean a brotherly friendliness--the delight of an old friend at seeing her after a long interval.

She was not the less angry at that outrageous unwarrantable kiss.

"It is not the rule of the game amongst civilised people; though it possibly may be among plough-boys and servant-maids!" she exclaimed indignantly. "You are really a most ungentlemanlike person! I wonder Lady Mabel Ashbourne has not taught you better manners."

"Is that to be my only reward for saving you from plunging--at least ankle-deep--in the marshy ground yonder? But for me you would have been performing a boggy version of Ophelia by this time."

"How did you come here?"

"I have been to Langley Brook for a day's fly-fishing, and was tramping home across country in a savage humour at my poor sport, when I heard the chatter of small voices, and presently came upon the Scobels and the school-children. The juveniles were in a state of alarm at having lost you. They had been playing the game in severe silence, and at a turn in the grove missed you altogether. Oh, here comes Scobel, with his trencher on the back of his head."

The Vicar came forward, rejoicing at sight of Violet's white gown.

"My dear, what a turn you have given us!" he cried; "those silly children, to let you out of their sight! I don't think a wood is a good place for Blindman's Buff."

"No more do I," answered Vixen, very pale.

"You look as if you had been frightened, too," said the Vicar.

"It did feel awfully lonely; not a sound, except the frogs croaking their vespers, and one dismal owl screaming in the distance. And how cold it has turned now the sun has gone down; and how ghostly the beeches look in their green mantles; there is something awful in a wood at sunset."

She ran on in an excited tone, masking her agitation under an unnatural vivacity. Roderick watched her keenly. Mr. and Mrs. Scobel went back to their business of getting the children together, and the pots, pans, and baskets packed for the return-journey. The children were inclined to be noisy and insubordinate. They would have liked to make a night of it in this woody hollow, or in the gorse-clothed heights up yonder by Stony Cross. To home after such a festival, and be herded in small stuffy cottages, was doubtless trying to free-born humanity, always more or less envious of the gipsies.

"Shall we walk up the hill together?" Roderick asked Violet humbly, "while the Scobels follow with their flock?"

"I am going to drive Mr. and Mrs. Scobel," replied Vixen curtly.

"But here is your carriage?"

"I don t know. I rather think it was to meet us at the top of the hill."

"Then let us go up together and find it--unless you hate me too much to endure my company for a quarter of an hour--or are too angry with me for my impertinence just now."

"It is not worth being serious about," answered Vixen quietly, after a little pause. "I was very angry at the moment, but after all--between you and me--who were like brother and sister a few years ago, it can't matter very much. I daresay you may have kissed me in those days, though I have forgotten all about it."

"I think I did--once or twice," admitted Rorie with laudable gravity.

"Then let your impertinence just now go down to the old account, which we will close, if you please, to-night. But," seeing him drawing nearer her with a sudden eagerness, "mind, it is never to be repeated. I could not forgive that."

"I would do much to escape your anger," said Rorie softly.

"The whole situation just now was too ridiculous," pursued Vixen, with a spurious hilarity. "A young woman wandering blindfold in a wood all alone--it must have seemed very absurd."

"It seemed very far from absurd--to me," said Rorie.

They were going slowly up the gra.s.sy hill, the short scanty herbage looking gray in the dimness. Glow-worms were beginning to shine here and there at the foot of the furze-bushes. A pale moon was rising above the broad expanse of wood and valley, which sank with gentle undulations to the distant plains, where the young corn was growing and the cattle were grazing in a sober agricultural district. Here all was wild and beautiful--rich, yet barren.

"I'm afraid when we met last--at Lady Southminster's ball--that I forgot to congratulate you upon your engagement to your cousin," said Violet by-and-by, when they had walked a little way in perfect silence.

She was trying to carry out an old determination. She had always meant to go up to him frankly, with outstretched hand, and wish him joy. And she fancied that at the ball she had said too little. She had not let him understand that she was really glad. "Believe me, I am very glad that you should marry someone close at home--that you should widen your influence among us."

"You are very kind," answered Rorie, with exceeding coldness. "I suppose all such engagements are subjects for congratulation, from a conventional point of view. My future wife is both amiable and accomplished, as you know. I have reason to be very proud that she has done me so great an honour as to prefer me to many worthier suitors; but I am bound to tell you--as we once before spoke of this subject, at the time of your dear father's death, and I then expressed myself somewhat strongly--I am bound to tell you that my engagement to Mabel was made to please my poor mother. It was when we were all in Italy together. My mother was dying. Mabel's goodness and devotion to her had been beyond all praise; and my heart was drawn to her by affection, by grat.i.tude; and I knew that it would make poor mother happy to see us irrevocably bound to each other--and so--the thing came about somehow, almost unawares, and I have every reason to be proud and happy that fate should have favoured me so far above my deserts."

"I am very glad that you are happy," said Violet gently.

After this there was a silence which lasted longer than the previous interval in their talk. They were at the top of the ill before either of them spoke.

Then Vixen laid her hand lightly upon her old playfellow's arm, and said, with extreme earnestness:

"You will go into Parliament by-and-by, no doubt, and have great influence. Do not let them spoil the Forest. Do not let horrid grinding-down economists, for the sake of saving a few pounds or gaining a few pounds, alter and destroy scenes that are so beautiful and a delight to so many. England is a rich country, is she not? Surely she can afford to keep something for her painters and her poets, and even for the humble holiday-folks who come to drink tea at Rufus's stone. Don't let our Forest be altered, Rorie. Let all things be as they were when we were children."

"All that my voice and influence can do to keep them so shall be done, Violet," he answered in tones as earnest. "I am glad that you have asked me something to-night. I am glad, with all my heart, that you have given me something to do for you. It shall be like a badge in my helmet, by-and-by, when I enter the lists. I think I shall say: 'For G.o.d and for Violet,' when I run a tilt against the economic devastators who want to clear our woods and cut off our commoners."

He bent down and kissed her hand, as in token of knightly allegiance.

He had just time to do it comfortably before Mr. and Mrs. Scobel, with the children and their master and mistress, came marching up the hill, singing, with shrill glad voices, one of the harvest-home processional hymns.

"All good gifts around us Are sent from heaven above, Then thank the Lord, oh thank the Lord, For all His love."

"What a delicious night!" cried Mr. Scobel. "I think we ought all to walk home. It would be much nicer than being driven."

This he said with a lively recollection of t.i.tmouse's performances on the journey out, and a lurking dread that he might behave a little worse on the journey home. A lively animal of that kind, going home to his stable, through the uncertain lights and shadows of woodland roads, and driven by such a charioteer as Violet Tempest, was not to be thought of without a shudder.

"I think I had better walk, in any case," said Mr. Scobel thoughtfully.

"I shall be wanted to keep the children together."

"Let us all walk home," suggested Roderick. "We can go through the plantations. It will be very jolly in the moonlight. Bates can drive your pony back, Violet."

Vixen hesitated.

"It's not more than four miles through the plantations," said Roderick.

"Do you think I am afraid of a long walk?"

"Of course not. You were a modern Atalanta three years ago. I don't suppose a winter in Paris and a season at Brighton have quite spoiled you."

"It shall be as you like, Mrs. Scobel," said Vixen, appealing to the Vicar's wife.

"Oh, let us walk by all means," replied Mrs. Scobel, divining her husband's feelings with respect to t.i.tmouse.

"Then, you may drive the pony home, Bates," said Violet; "and be sure you give him a good supper."

t.i.tmouse went rattling down the hill at a pace that almost justified the Vicar's objection to him. He gave a desperate shy in the hollow at sight of a s.h.a.ggy donkey, with a swollen appearance about the head, suggestive, to the equine mind, of hobgoblins. Convulsed at this appalling spectre. t.i.tmouse stood on end for a second or two, and then tore violently off, swinging his carriage behind him, so that the groom's figure swayed to and fro in the moonlight.

"Thank G.o.d we're not sitting behind that brute!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Vicar devoutly.