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bay, scanning him with her well-equipped gaze, and he answered her at last. ‘Yes; I remember you. Very well. You played Brahms. Yes; these are my woods, I believe. I have hardly found my way about the place yet.’

He turned, and as, after a moment’s hesitation, she went forward, he walked beside her in the narrow path. After all, Monica said to herself, she had intended to go to the end of the woods.

‘Do you really think of settling here?’ she asked, pursuing her own train of thought, for he said nothing and she knew that he was still looking at her. ‘Have you given up India?’

‘India has given me up,’ said Captain Ingpen. ‘I can’t go on there. I have been too ill and I am getting too old for the sort of life I like. I can’t stand being scorched or frozen any longer.’ His voice was as curious as his gaze; so low that one would expect it to be soft; yet so harsh that it startled one.

‘And you think that you will be able to stand being rained on? England’s a very damp place, a very sodden place, after India.’

‘I think it’s getting old that’s sodden—everywhere,’ said Captain Ingpen.