He had intended to move on next day, but somehow, for no particular reason, he had stayed. He had been here almost a week and still he felt no more at ease in his own soul. He had come to a clearing in the wood where the golden sun filtered through the trees in great patches. He flung himself down upon a mossy bank and sat hugging his knees, staring gloomily before him. The sunlight played about his bare head, caressing his cheeks, but it awoke no gladness in him. He blinked at it, and shifted farther into the shade.

A crackling of twigs sounded on his left, and the flick of leaves brushing against an alien presence. He turned his head apathetically.

Through the undergrowth a little lady came, pushing her way. She paused for a moment on the edge of the clearing, standing on tiptoe, like some startled faun, timidly regarding him.

Peter looked at her with some interest. Her hair was cut short and clustered in feathery curls about her head. She was dressed in white muslin, high-waisted and blue-sashed, with tiny puff sleeves and sandal shoes. Rather eccentric, Peter thought, but quite pleasing to the eye. She looked very young, too, hardly more than a child. but it was difficult to tell with that short hair.

For a moment they stared at one another, he curiously, she with a half-shy, half-mischievous look on her little, pointed face. Then she took one or two dancing steps forward, light as thistledown upon the grass, and curtseyed to him, laughing. The sound of her voice was like fairy bells, ethereal and far away. Peter saw that although her eyes were smiling they were very sad.

He struggled up awkwardly.

“I hope I’m not trespassing,” he said. “I thought the woods were not private?”

She danced back a few paces.

“Oh, no! Not private now.”

She laughed again, pointing her tiny foot.

“They were once, I suppose?” he asked for want of something better to say.

“Yes—oh, yes! A long, long while ago.”

She came back to him, seeming hardly to touch the ground, so light was she. She hesitated a moment and sat down on the bank. She stretched out her hand in a shy, inviting gesture. Peter obeyed the summons and sank down beside her. The little lady possessed an odd magnetism; he found himself drawn to her almost irresistibly.

“D’you live here?” he inquired, smiling at her.

Her eyes flew up to his and he saw his smile reflected in their wistful, blue depths.

“No, not now. They all went away,” she said sadly. “I only come here sometimes. Once I lived here.”

She made a gesture with her hand, embracing the wood. His smile grew.

“What, in the wood?”

The rippling laugh bubbled up again.

“Oh, no! Over there.” She pointed, and his eyes followed the direction of her finger.

“There? Carbury Place lies that way, doesn’t it?”

She clapped her hands.

“That is it!”

“Then you are a Dering?”