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Monica moved along the path. But she was angry, and the more for his having asked it; and she suspected him now of knowing what she felt and of enjoying her predicament and of inwardly jibing at the embraced Victorian lady.

‘Now, do look at the house before you go,’ he said. He had moved beside her. ‘And tell me that you think it improved.’ He was completely master of the situation.

She looked up at the bare facade. ‘Yes; it is much better. You might have a rose there, trained over the door. Not a crimson-rambler. I am glad that’s gone. Some nice old-fashioned yellowish rose to go with the colour of the house. Yes; it’s really very nice like that. Recklessness has its uses.’ The breeze had risen and the wood rustled at hand, darker now and more melancholy. ‘I will go back by the road,’ said Monica. ‘There are too many insecure planks to cross in the wood.’

‘I was just thinking when I met you,’ said Captain Ingpen, ‘how easy it would be—if one managed to break one’s neck in a tumble—to disappear in the mud of one of those ditches and never be heard of again.’

‘They are rather grisly streams,’ Monica admitted.