"There's some business coming through that's amusing me. Honest.
It doesn't get on my nerves at all."

"Want a secretary?"

"No, thanks, old thing! Isn't that quite English?"

"Too English! Go away." But none the less in broad daylight she
returned the kiss. "I'm off to Pardons. I haven't been to the
house for nearly a week."

"How've you decided to furnish Jane Elphick's bedroom?" he
laughed, for it had come to be a permanent Castle in Spain
between them.

"Black Chinese furniture and yellow silk brocade," she answered,
and ran downhill. She scattered a few cows at a gap with a
flourish of a ground-ash that Iggulden had cut for her a week
ago, and singing as she passed under the holmoaks, sought the
farm-house at the back of Friars Pardon. The old man was not to
be found, and she knocked at his half-opened door, for she needed
him to fill her idle forenoon. A blue-eyed sheep-dog, a new
friend, and Rambler's old enemy, crawled out and besought her to
enter.

Iggulden sat in his chair by the fire, a thistle-spud between his
knees, his head drooped. Though she had never seen death before,
her heart, that missed a beat, told her that he was dead. She did
not speak or cry, but stood outside the door, and the dog licked