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Desmond went out to her car with her, and just as she was about to drive off, he leaned his arms on the edge of it and looked down at her.

“Judith, don’t worry too much,” he said softly. “You see, I’ve got the glimmerings of an idea that might help you out!”

“Have you, Des?” she said eagerly. “Tell me what it is!”

But he shook his head.

“No, it’s too soon yet. I’ll only say—it depends partly on you.”

Judith regarded him gravely.

“When I said that I would do anything so that I need not leave Windygates, I meant it,” she told him.

Desmond nodded.

“I know. I’m relying on that.” He stood up. “Well— be seeing you, Judith!”

When she had gone he strolled slowly back into the kitchen and slumped down on the window seat, his hands in his pockets. Linda had finished preparing her baking now and was clearing up the table. She glanced across at Desmond and said bluntly:

“It’s no good your deciding to marry Judith, because she’d never have you! After all, you don’t know half as much about farming as she does, and she’d never marry a man who wasn’t at least her match.”

Desmond did not attempt to deny that she had read his thoughts, for the simple reason that, whatever other dissimilarities there were between them, their brains worked in the same way. They did not of a necessity, however, come to the same conclusion. This was a case in point.

“That is just where you are wrong,” Desmond retorted negligently. “Don’t you know that Judith would absolutely hate being married to anyone who could put her in the wrong or even knew enough to argue with her! No, she’ll always want to be the boss where the farm is concerned, and that’s all right by me!” Linda regarded him thoughtfully. There was something in that, she reflected, and it was admittedly quite clever of Desmond to have seen it. None the less. . . .

“I know,” Desmond’s mouth twisted in a smile that held cynicism as well as genuine amusement. “What sort of a man is it that permits his wife to wear the trousers? Well, I’ll tell you. One that isn’t afraid of the truth. I know you think I’m a slacker, and perhaps I am—but not when it pays me to be energetic! And, married to Judith, it would pay me to see that we got the utmost penny out of Windygates!”

“I thought you said—” Linda began, but he disregarded her interruption.

“To begin with, as a matter of fact, I know quite a lot about farming—and I could easily learn more. Also, I’ve a name for being pretty shrewd. I’d see to it that Judith didn’t get done, as I’m pretty sure she does at present. And in addition to that, I should take particular interest in one special line—rotation of crops, the strain of the sheep—it wouldn’t matter what, and there is plenty to choose from in a mixed farm like that. The point would be that, being an expert on one subject, no one would regard me as a parasite, and yet Judith would have the last word in almost every case, so everybody would be happy!” He leaned back against the window frame, hugging his knees and grinning with maddening confidence at his sister.

“You think you’re mighty clever, don’t you?” she said tartly.

“I know I am. And so do you,” he retorted.

Linda shrugged her shoulders.

“I gather you’ve been thinking of this for some time, haven’t you?” she suggested.

“I have,” he admitted.

She sniffed disparagingly.

“You don’t seem to have made much headway!”

“No? Well, you tell me any other man that Judith knows to whom she would have given her confidence as she has to me!” Desmond challenged. “But you know what Judith is. She’s been so immersed in the farm that she’s never looked at a man! She’s neither mercenary nor romantic minded. In fact, if you can bear with my being somewhat poetical for a moment, I would suggest that the word ‘unawakened’ is the best description of Judith that one could find. I would also point out that I am the first man to know that she is thinking of marriage now, and to whom would it be more natural that she should turn than her old friend, Desmond? She isn’t afraid of me, you see.”

Linda had to admit that there was a lot in what he said. And privately, she was determined to give him all the support that lay in her power. None the less, a desire to irritate him as well as genuine curiosity prompted her to say:

“What about this Saxilby man? He’s on the spot, remember!”

Desmond made a gesture of derision.

“From what Judith says, he’s one of those appallingly dominant males that treat women as if they are dirt! No, he’s too much like her father to attract Judith!” As to that, Linda was not so sure. Many women, for all their talk of emancipation and individuality, still preferred a man who asked nothing more of them than to look charming,
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the mistress of his house and the mother of his children. And to such a woman, a man who was willing to shoulder all the responsibilities was absolutely essential. Judith, unawakened, to use Desmond’s word, was not such a woman, but—who knew? Many a woman in love is a very different being from what she was before. However, to argue with Desmond was quite pointless and, besides, there was something else occupying her mind.

“Saxilby. It’s a queer name, isn’t it? Uncommon. And yet I have the feeling that I have heard it before— I’ve an idea that it was linked up with something very important. The same way that if you hear the name Churchill—only in this case I can’t remember what was important about it!”

“It all sounds rather vague,” Desmond commented, lounging to his feet. “In any case, if it was important I should hardly think it was anything connected with this chap. From what we know, he must be a bit of a rolling stone or he wouldn’t be wanting a job like this: he’d' be farming on his own. Well, I’m going into Wyford now. I wish to heaven you’d let me know sooner that you were getting low in flour! It’s an awful bind making a trip just for one thing like this when I was in earlier in the week anyhow.”

Linda made no reply to his complaint. Desmond always had got something to grouse about, and though in this case she had to admit that it was bad management on her part not to have let him know before, one got into the way of ignoring complaints when they were such frequent occurrences. And, in any case, her mind was still occupied with that half memory of hers.

Saxilby. Saxilby. It was a queer name and, as she had said, an unusual one. It was not very recently that she had heard it.

And then, suddenly, she remembered. Nearly two years ago she had gone to stay with some friends in Sussex. They had taken her to a point-to-point and Charles had been there. They had told her that he was the best rider in the county. She wondered how she could have forgotten, for Charles, tall, fair and bronzed, had made quite an impression on her. He had, she remembered, been with a man who limped and a small, quiet woman. His brother and sister-in-law. A man with a title.

“But,” she had been told, “Charles is the man that has got the money! His grandfather was Andrew Saxilby—an American, practically a millionaire! Charles’s parents were killed in an air crash, so Charles ”

No wonder she had thought that it was important! The grandson of a dead millionaire may well be important! Linda drew a deep breath. For a moment she hesitated. Should she tell Desmond what she had remembered? Or keep her own counsel? She decided on the latter. First of all, she wanted to make sure that it was the same man. In the meantime she would write to her friends and find out a little more about him. The name of his relations, something of his background, perhaps even a little about his likes and dislikes. It all helped when one was—was planning a campaign.

For the moment, however, that must wait. A bell summoned her to the little room in which she served coffees and teas. A big, prosperous-looking man, obviously an American, was sitting alone at a table.’ Through the window she could see his large, shining car. Well, whatever the future might hold of golden promise, she needed money now! She smiled politely and took the order. And later, when her customer made enquiries about the age of the house, she obligingly showed him all over it. But her mind was still on Charles Saxilby, and her manner, though pleasant enough, was a little distrait. It was a new experience for the man who followed her eagerly from one oak-beamed room to another. He was not used to women being indifferent to his presence. The new sensation was not, perhaps, a very gratifying one—but it was certainly intriguing.

By the end of a week Charles felt that he had a fairly good picture in his mind of the layout of the farm and the use to which the ground was put. As Harriet had told him, they went in for mixed farming, and with considerable success. Hereford cattle were the primary product, and, as Charles quickly found out, were also Judith’s chief interest. In addition there was a not very large flock of ewes. The bulk of the arable land was under wheat, with smaller areas devoted to potatoes, sugar beet and various roots. It said a lot for the standard of management that in addition to himself and Judith there were only five permanent men and one boy. Incidentally, after a day or so, Charles came to the conclusion that the boy was going to be more trouble than all the men put together. Nor did his judgment turn out to be incorrect.

His first act had been to go to the stables. Here he found a mare so obviously meant as a lady’s mount that he knew she must be Judith’s. In addition, there were a sturdy little cob and a big, handsome horse who gazed at him with mournful, questioning eyes. Charles immediately laid a caressing hand on his neck.

“This is a splendid chap,” he commented to Joe, the boy, who had followed him like a shadow. “I suppose it was Mr. Ravensdale’s mount?”

“That’s right, sir,” Joe agreed eagerly. “Always out together they were. Darky don’t seem to be able to understand what’s' happened now he doesn’t get out so much.”

“Do you mean he is not exercised sufficiently?” Charles asked sharply.

Joe shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, I take him out every day, sir, but it ain’t the same. And he’s too big for Miss Judith, you see.”

“Yes, right. Well, saddle him, will you?”

Joe looked doubtful.

“Miss Judith said ”

“That’s all right, Joe,” Charles said casually. “I will see Miss Judith about it.”

Joe looked up at him from under a sandy thatch of hair with eyes that were just so small and close together as to give him rather an unpleasantly sly look, but he made no comment and got on with the job.

It was perhaps unfortunate that Charles had hardly left the stable yard before he encountered Judith—a Judith whose eyes flamed and who stood deliberately in his path.

“Get off!” she ordered furiously.

Charles swung down with the ease of long experience.

“Yes, Miss Ravensdale?” he asked pleasantly, as if there was nothing remarkable in her manner.

“How dare you—how dare you!” she stammered and then took hold of herself. “That is my father’s horse! I’ve given orders ”

“That no one but the boy who exercises him is to ride him?” Charles said quietly. “Yes, so I understand. But I also understand that Darky was in the habit of being out a great deal with your father. Have you thought how cruel it is to a horse to cut down the exercise it is used to? And, what is more, the human companionship it has grown to need?”

“The only companionship he has ever wanted was my father’s!” Judith said belligerently. “He will do what you tell him to because he is well trained, but you will never gain his affection!”

And at that moment, Darky, who had possibly grown a little tired of waiting, gently nuzzled Charles’s ear and blew down his neck. Before Charles’s eyes Judith’s face crumpled up like that of a child which has been disappointed or hurt, and without a word she turned on her heel and went swiftly away.

Charles pushed his head against that of the horse.

“Did you have to do that at just that minute, you mutt?” he enquired. “Don’t you know you’ve earned me another bad mark?”

But Darky, superbly indifferent to everything but the desire to stretch his legs, suggested unmistakably that Charles should stop talking nonsense and get into the saddle.

And Charles, with a shrug, did so because there was nothing else to do. But in his mind’s eye he was following Judith and wondering, as he had done more than once, whether, after all, Miss Ravensdale had been right in her determination to alter Judith’s life. After all, wasn’t the trouble that she was having with local farmers and their wives due to nothing more than stupid prejudice which ought to be ignored? What could be worse than compelling a human being to live what seemed to them an unnatural life? After all, he had seen the cruelty of it quickly enough where Darky was concerned. Surely what was unfair to an animal was at least equally hard on Judith?

And yet—Darky tossed his head impatiently and Charles found all his attention required to quietening the beautiful, highly strung creature. He thought no more about Judith—for the time being.

In the days that followed he found Judith hardly cooperative, but at least she answered any questions he asked her, though she never volunteered information. It seemed that she had accepted the situation, however grudgingly, and no one but Judith knew how heavily time hung on her hands.

But what else could she do? Charles must go. She was determined on that, and the only way to see that he did was to give him sufficient rope to hang himself.

The worst of it was that he had such a trick of making it appear that he was in the right. Over Darky, for instance. Her conscience had told her that the horse ought to have more exercising, and that to allow him to spend so much time at grass could only be bad for him. Yet Charles had had no right to use him without her permission—in her heart of hearts she knew quite well that his fault would have been easier to forgive if it had not been for that confident nuzzling of Darky’s. She had seen him do that so many times to her father.

There was to be another clash over Darky. Judith, relieved of an increasing amount of work, spent more and more time riding her mare, Truda. More than once she met Desmond out in his old car, and they would stop and have a talk. In the old days they had frequently ridden together and Judith spoke of that, regretting that his time was so fully occupied now that they could not go out together.