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of Hester, but she could not very well tell a stranger that Hester MacDonald was not going to make her welcome at Glenkeith.
    “I think you can be happy anywhere if you try hard enough,” she said.
    He swept her what might have been a mocking bow. “The Voice of Youth! How youthful are you? And I don’t even know your name!”
    “My name is Tessa—Tessa Halliday, and I’m eighteen. I’ve lived in Italy all my life and I loved it there, but now that I’ve come to live in Scotland I know that I shall love it, too.”
    “I’m going to do my best to help!” he said, and they laughed, their voices ringing out hollowly against the grey barrier of the mist.
    “Hullo, there!”
    The voice came back to them like an echo of their own, but Tessa knew that it had been sterner, with no laughter backing it. It was another second or two, however, before a man’s tall, blurred figure materialized out of the gloom, striding purposefully towards them. It looked ominous, for a moment, looming formidably through the soft grey wall of mist, but she recognized Andrew without difficulty.
    He stared up at her sitting in the saddle above him, as if he had been prepared for anything but the present situation.
    “How in heaven’s name did you get here?” he demanded harshly. “We missed you at Glenkeith an hour ago and I’ve been searching for you ever since.”
    He had not tried to cover up the anger in his voice, and she felt like a small child who had been guilty of some foolish indiscretion which had gone far beyond the bonds of ordinary naughtiness.
    “I’m sorry, Andrew,” she apologized. “I lost my way, but now I see that I had no right to come so far.”
    He stood rigidly in the path, blocking the horse’s way,
    but for a moment Tessa had forgotten all about Nigel Haddow.
    “I ought to have known that you would be all right, I suppose,” Andrew said. “You can take care of yourself.”
    The words had been meant to hurt. He felt that he had been made to look a fool since she had obviously met Nigel Haddow before this and had probably come out to some rendezvous with him on the moor. He was conscious of having avoided Tessa for days and of laughing the idea to scorn when it presented itself to him, demanding why he should wish to avoid her at all. She was the necessary evil at Glenkeith and he knew, didn’t he, what manner of creature she must be? For years—all his life—the mirror of her mother’s faithlessness had been held up before his agonized eyes and through it he had seen his father’s memory tarnished in the eyes of his fellow-men.
    Nigel Haddow stretched up to lift Tessa from the saddle.
    “Andrew probably has the brake with him,” he said. “Better go back to Glenkeith and get dry. You can come to Ardnashee another day.”
    Tessa found herself standing on the narrow path trembling between sudden anger and remorse. She was sorry to have brought Andrew out on to the moor when quite possibly he had other things to do, but he need not have spoken to her as if she had been an irresponsible child. If he had suspected that he would be wasting his time he need not have come in search of her.
    The two men were exchanging trivialities on their way down to the road where Andrew had parked the estate car.
    “It will be slow going,” Nigel said, looking about him at the thickening mist. “Are you sure you won’t come up to Ardnashee and wait to see if it is going to lift?”
    “It will get worse with the darkness,” Andrew returned almost brusquely. “I’d rather push on, thanks all the same.” He walked on a few paces in silence. “We’ve managed to keep this from the old man so far,” he explained, “but he’ll begin to ask questions if we don’t show up before seven, and he’s not in a fit state to be worried.”
    “No.” Nigel halted the mare beside the brake. “We don’t see much of you these days, Drew,” he mentioned. “Working too hard, I expect. You’ll come over for a day’s