Chapter X
THREE weeks later Lady Flora and Hugh were riding with slack reins over the great downs which sweep from Musuru to the north. Their caravan was visible some miles in the rear, a small dot in the interminable expanse of green. The riders were facing south, and far away appeared the dark line which told of the forests which surrounded the house. It was a windless afternoon, but at that height the air had the freshness of a mountain–top. The world slept in the still and golden weather—only the sound of their horses' hoofs, and now and then the cry of a bird, broke in upon the warm, scented silence. The bent, green with springtide in the near distance, mellowed in the farther spaces to a pale gold, which stood out with entrancing clearness against the crystalline blue of the sky. It
