Speed said: "I should think the ground's far too hard for rugger, Helen."
She answered, somberly: "Yes, I daresay it is. It's really summer still, isn't it?—And I'm so glad. I hate the winters."
"You hate the winters, eh?—Why's that?"
"It's so cold, and the pitches are all muddy, and there are horrid locks-up after dark. Oh, I hate Millstead in winter-time."
He said, musingly: "We must have big fires when the cold weather comes, anyway."
Then Burton departed, closing the door very delicately after him, and the conversation languished. Speed glanced vaguely through his correspondence. He was ever so slightly nervous. That month's honeymoon in Cornwall had passed like a rapt and cloudless vision, but ever beyond the horizon of it had been the thought of this return to Millstead for the
