There had been a hoar frost the night before, whitening the grass, the trees, the high walls and railings, and Joanna crossing by herself to the stables with her skirt held up, left a trail of dark footprints behind her. There were no other tracks, so she knew she was the first to arrive. She could hear the groom chirruping beyond the stable wall, and the noise of nervous hoofs on the cobbles as he saddled the hacks – sounds that usually made her quicken her pace with an eager springing forward of her whole body. But on this morning she continued to walk slowly and without looking about her. She was absorbed entirely in the news received the night before, that Louis was on his way back to Glasgow. He was returning after a longer absence than usual, returning from Paris. She would see him the next day. His letter, full of devotion and hunger for her, was between her breasts at this moment, pressed close there by her buttoned-up riding-coat. And her heart was contracted with desperate longing and fear and joy.

But somebody was shouting her name. It was Carl, lower down in the garden behind her. She smiled automatically and turned round with a friendly gesture of greeting. This however was arrested midway, and her uplifted hand in its leather glove clutching a little riding-switch, dropped quickly to her side again.

For Carl was not alone. Lawrence Urquhart was with him – and dressed for riding.

Joanna was angered. As the two men came toward her, crisping with their boots through the short, brittle grass, she blamed first Lawrence, then Carl, and she met them with a blank face. Lawrence might, thought she, have kept away. He must know how impossible it was to carry out in practice his suggested friendship. The strain and futility of their few meetings during the past year (it was now eighteen months since his mother’s death) should have convinced him of that. And since the last meeting, so long a time had elapsed that she had fancied him sensible to the situation. But here he was again. And now the rides would be spoiled!

As for Carl he was still more to blame than Lawrence. Carl, knowing, as she was sure he did, about Louis, had deliberately invited Lawrence to join them. It was wicked of Carl: no wonder he did not care to meet her gaze as he explained volubly that Urquhart had been having some lessons and only needed company to complete his enjoyment in the sport.

And to this tale Lawrence assented with a simplicity which astonished Joanna almost out of her anger. He had kept his dark eyes on her face while Carl spoke, smiling with a lively but baffling candour of pleasure. There was a perfect understanding between these two male beings that was like a conspiracy against her; and she resented it all the more that they were both so incomprehensible to her.