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He looked at her intently.

“You’re sure you’re not putting up with any inconvenience on my account?”

“Perfectly sure!” Ruth told him truthfully, and his grave eyes responded to the smile in her own.

“It’s like coming home!” he said quietly.

“Will you come down to lunch whenever you are ready?” she asked, as she turned back along the corridor.

The clamp of horses’ hooves in the yard heralded the return of the riding-party. Ruth found Edmund Hersheil in the kitchen, tightening the strap of his riding-boot. He straightened as she entered.

“Has your guest arrived?” he asked.

Yes,” Ruth replied, “a few minutes ago.”

“Strange,” Edmund mused, “how old acquaintances keep turning up! I’ve just met another of your ex-guests while we were riding through the village on our way back here.”

“Oh?” Ruth said, without much interest. “Whom?”

“Miss Grenton,” Edmund told her. “I used to know Valerie rather well in London, you know.”

He was watching her closely, and with an effort, Ruth forced a careless smile.

“Miss Grenton has managed to find accommodation somewhere else, then?” she said, turning to the dresser to collect the plates for lunch.

Edmund crossed to her side.

“I know you refused to have her here,” he said, in an undertone, so that his remark might escape Mrs. Emery, who was busy at the range. “Valerie told me this morning.” He gave a queer, twisted smile. “So you’re as capable of jealousy as the next one, Ruth!”

Ruth turned slowly and placed the pile of blue-banded china on the table.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said steadily.

Hersheil laughed abruptly.

“I think you do,” he said. “It’s only natural that Travayne should be attracted to Valerie, and not unnatural that they should want to come back here together. The only wonder is that he came alone! However,” he continued, following Ruth’s every movement about the kitchen, “she’s parked herself at a fairly convenient distance.”

Ruth knew that he was trying to trick her into some show of emotion, and she was determined that she was not going to give him any satisfaction.

“Mr. Travayne and Miss Grenton are both at liberty to come and go as they please,” she said frigidly. “And now, if you don’t mind, I must spread the table-cloth for lunch. ’

She hurried to the dining-room, glad of the excuse to escape Hersheil. He had put into words the vague, half-formed feelings that were not yet thoughts in her mind. Yet, what right had she to demand an explanation of Travayne’s doings even of herself? He was free to come and go as he pleased. Thinking of the evident pleasure of his return less than an hour ago, she could not reconcile it in her heart with any desire on his part to be reunited with Valerie Grenton. But men were strange creatures, she thought, and John Travayne was often silent and preoccupied ...

After lunch there was the usual grouping of guests in the hall, and a discussion began about how they might spend the afternoon to the best advantage. Ruth was referred to for a suggestion.

“You might find Bamburgh interesting,” she said, as Travayne sauntered in from the garden to join the group. “It’s a lovely little place on the coast. There’s a castle, and you’ll find Grace Darling’s grave in the churchyard there. The road from Belford is quite a good one for motoring.”

Her suggestion was accepted eagerly enough and the group melted away, the ladies in search of coats and the men to bring round the cars. Ruth found herself alone with Travayne.

“Is tourist-guide still part of your job?” he smiled.

“Yes,” Ruth confessed, “but I quite enjoy that part. There are really so many interesting places round here that it seems a shame that my—our guests should miss anything worthwhile.”

Travayne picked out the pronoun.

“Our
guests? Then it’s true that you have taken a partner?”

Ruth smiled wistfully and shook her head.

“I’m afraid Conningscliff wasn’t paying well enough to consider a partnership yet,” she said. “The Guest House belongs to the Squire now. His nephew is managing it.”

“Hersheil—?” Travayne gave a short laugh. “What exactly is your position, then?” he asked, in the old, blunt manner Ruth remembered so well.

“Hostess. I believe that’s what Mr. Hersheil called it when it was settled that I should stay.”

Travayne’s lips were compressed into a firm line.

“I know I deserve to be told that it’s no affair of mine,” he said, “but—did he offer you enough for the idea?”

“Enough?”

“Yes—compensation for clearing out and leaving him to walk in on a good-going concern. Goodwill, if you like to call it that.”

“Our lease was up,” Ruth said slowly, “and—I found it compensation enough to have my father provided for.”

Travayne was silent.

“I see,” he said at last, and did not open the subject again, because he had seen pain and disappointment in a woman’s wide,

dark eyes.

“I'm taking a turn across the fields,” he told her, with one of his slow smiles. “I suppose two o’clock is an unheard-of hour for a busy hostess to take time for a walk?”

Ruth shook her head ruefully.

“I’d love to come,” she said, “but I have a hundred-and-one things to attend to, and there’s the eggs to grade and the village orders to put up. I generally try to find time to deliver them before tea.”

“I’ll help with the grading—if you’ll trust me!” he offered, as he swung off down the lane.

Ruth watched him go until his tall figure had disappeared from view on the winding, dipping road which led across the dunes. He was so friendly, and he had made it obvious, once more, that he desired her company. She could not believe that it was his way with women; long ago she had felt that a flirtation, no matter how mild, was the last thing to expect of John Travayne. Yet, Valerie Grenton was staying somewhere in the vicinity, and Ruth felt sure that nothing but Travayne’s presence at Conningscliff would have induced Valerie to spend another holiday in Northumberland.

She turned back into the house and walked slowly through to the kitchen to find it deserted.

There was a list of groceries to make out before she went to the village, and she sat down at the kitchen table to write. Fruit and sugar—and more tea, she decided, biting on the end of her pencil reflectively, and then the sound of a motor-horn broke in upon her thoughts, faintly at first and then nearer and more persistently, as if an impatient hand were pressed down on the electric horn of the unseen car. Surely none of the guests could have returned already, Ruth thought, as she rose and crossed to the window to look out.

Her father was stirring restlessly in his chair and Pete, the old collie, had roused himself from his slumbers and was ambling down the yard, grunting in the back of his throat at this sudden interruption to a pleasant afternoon’s siesta. Ruth saw Will Finberry half-way down the cinder track approaching the white gate at its far end with what must have seemed maddening deliberation to the occupant of the big cream car on the other side. She recognised Valerie Grenton even before she heard the familiar voice demanding to know who had closed the gate.

Will Finberry opened the gate and the big tourer swept up the cinder track and came to rest on the flags of the yard. Ruth had crossed to the kitchen door and stood waiting with an odd, constricted feeling at her heart.

“Hullo!” Valerie greeted her, with easy familiarity. “You see, I’ve not been able to keep away, even though you wouldn’t give me a room!”

“I’m afraid it was a case of there being no room to offer,” Ruth said. “We were full up for June when your letter came.”

“So John got his application in before me!” Valerie mused, rubbing an immaculately gloved hand along the steering-wheel. “Or—did he?” She looked back at Ruth, open challenge in her wide eyes.

“If you mean did I get Mr. Travayne’s letter before your own,” Ruth replied, “I did. I gave him the only available room.”

“Strange—this luck of Travayne’s!” Valerie laughed. “Where is he, by the way?”

“He left to go for a walk along the cliffs not more than half an hour ago.”

“What a nuisance!” Valerie complained peevishly. “I’m sick of driving round in this heat!”

“Can I make you a cup of tea?” Ruth offered, seeing that her father had stirred uneasily again at the continued sound of voices.

“No, thank you. Don’t bother. I’ll drive around for half an hour, but I promised to get back to Denestep for tea. I’m staying with some friends there—the Elvermeres. Do you know them?”

“Not personally,” Ruth said.

Valerie pressed the starter and the engine roared into life, bringing the farmer back to consciousness with a start. Miss Grenton acknowledged him perfunctorily, and the car moved slowly forward.

“Who’s she calling for?” William Farday asked, when the dust had settled down on the cinder track.

“Mr. Travayne.”

Ruth knew that her voice was shaking a little, and she turned with relief as Peg Emery came round the end of the dairy buildings with the second collection of eggs.

“They’re to clean an’ grade yet, Miss Ruth,” Peg said. “Them new Leghorns are laying fourteen to the dozen!”

Ruth smiled.

“All right, Peg,” she said, “you sit down and have a rest. I’ll see to the eggs when I’ve made the afternoon tea. There will only be ourselves and—perhaps Mr. Travayne.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

When Ruth crossed to the dairy an hour later she was fully convinced that John Travayne must have met Valerie Grenton on his way back to Conningscliff. She began to clean the eggs automatically, determined that she would not let herself think of these two out on the road which wound across the dunes.

“Am I too late?”

Travayne’s voice broke in upon the silence as she was packing the first order into the straw-filled basket.

“No. Come in!”

She turned to him quickly, an eager light in her eyes.

“I walked along the cliffs and came back by that avenue of trees down there,” Travayne said, nodding towards the cinder track and the white gate which lay open as Valerie had left it. “Quite a circular tour!”

“Did you meet Miss Grenton?”

He looked puzzled for a moment.

“The last time I met the lady was quite by chance one night in London. I had been to a show and she was there with a noisy crowd of youngsters. We met coming out.”

“She called here this afternoon to see you.”

“To see me?” he echoed. “What about?”

“I don’t know. I thought you might have been—expecting her to call.”

He smiled, looking down directly into her eyes.

“I had no idea she was even in the neighbourhood,” he said, and dismissed the subject as if it were of no great importance. “Must we deliver these eggs right away?” he asked.

“I must!”

He lifted the heavy basket and turned to the door.

“Where to?” he asked.

“The village, sir!” she said with a laugh. “I promise you won’t have to walk all the way, though.”

Will Finberry had harnessed the mare to the trap, and Travayne packed the two heavy baskets into the back seat. Will climbed up in front, and Ruth sat behind with her guest.

The journey was a pleasant one, and Ruth’s heart was light again as she sat upright in the little swaying vehicle and looked out at the smiling countryside. The village lay inland, and the road across the moors was like a switchback. At the head of the last rise Will Finberry drew the mare to a standstill.

“Will ye be takin’ the widow Charlton’s eggs down to the cottage the now?” he asked, bending back in his seat to speak to Ruth without turning round.

Ruth looked across at Travayne.

“Would you care to walk back to Conningscliff?” she asked. “It’s only three miles by the moor path, and after I’ve done my shopping in the village, we could leave Will to take the trap home.”

“A good idea,” he agreed. “Suppose I deliver Mrs. Charlton’s eggs for you and meet you here on the way back?”

Ruth looked surprised. He had sounded almost eager to obtain the mission of delivering the eggs to the cottage in the hollow beneath them.

“I thought you might have liked to see our village,” she said. “But perhaps you’ve been down before and were disappointed?”

“I’ve been before,” he replied, “and I was not disappointed.” He smiled at her suddenly. “I thought my idea would save time, since we are going to walk back to Conningscliff.”

“It would—really,” Ruth said thoughtfully. “If you would like to take the eggs—and this.” She produced a small basket and something rolled up in a clean white towel. “It’s some butter and a few scones,” she explained hurriedly. “Old Mrs. Charlton is almost blind.”

Travayne got down and accepted the basket.

“I’ll smoke a pipe by the stile yonder until you get back,” he said.

He had been almost anxious to avoid revisiting the village, Ruth mused, as she watched the mare’s bobbing head over Will Finberry’s shoulder. Perhaps small, out-of-the-way hamlets bored him. He was always eager to seek the solitude of the moors. Well, if that was his way ...