"She'd soon have held her own. Lady D. would have had to
come to terms!" However, he remembered with some compunction that Doris
did seem to have been a good deal neglected at Crosby Ledgers, and that
he had not done much to help her.
* * * * *
It was an "off" day for the shooters, and Lady Dunstable's guests were
lounging about the garden, writing letters or playing a little leisurely
golf on the lower reaches of the moor. Some of the ladies, indeed, had
not yet appeared downstairs; a sleepy heat reigned over the valley with
its winding stream, and veiled the distant hills. Meadows's companion,
Ralph Barrow, a young novelist of promise, had gone fast asleep on the
grass; Meadows was drowsing over his book; the dogs slept on the terrace
steps; and in the summer silence the murmur of the river far below stole
up the hill on which the house stood, and its soft song held the air.
Suddenly there was a disturbance. The dogs sprang up and barked. There
was a firm step on the gravel.
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