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wielding his weapon with a sort of indolent enjoyment. ‘I accept your judgment. Nothing could be less reckless.—Now there is a mess! Can you step through it?’

‘You are reckless. You enjoy destruction,’ Monica said, still with her startled laugh.

‘Well, that’s true enough; when it’s of rubbish.’ He held out his hand. She steadied herself on it and sprang; but her ankle struck against a spar of splintered wood and she found herself precipitated into Captain Ingpen’s arms. For a moment of confusion and anger, anger against him—and against herself for suspecting him—she did suspect that they closed about her. ‘My fault,’ she heard him say, calmly:—or was it calmly? ‘You are not hurt?’—He placed her on the path.

‘My ankle is a little hurt, I think.’ She hoped that she, too, spoke calmly, or seemed to: and her tumble would explain her hurried breath, her heightened colour. He was observing her colour, and then he looked down at her ankle. ‘Yes; your stocking is torn. Are you angry with me?’ he asked, and his ambiguous smile rested on her; ‘I only meant to satisfy your taste about the trellis; I didn’t mean you to hurt your ankle.’

‘Of course I’m not angry. It’s not really hurt.’