of autumn Gabrielle sat at her window looking over
the misty lawn and making the clothes for her baby. It is not
surprising, under the circumstances, that Considine did not show any
symptoms of paternal pride. This, it must be confessed, was the most
unpleasant condition of his bargain. Still, he had undertaken it
deliberately, and meant to go through with it like a man. He looked
forward to the time when it should be over and done with. Then they
would be able to make a new start; Gabrielle would be wholly his, and
Radway, he confidently expected, forgotten.

In the meantime, having, in the flush of marriage completed his
theological thesis and sent it off to the university from which he
expected a doctor's degree, he determined to enjoy the sporting
possibilities of Roscarna to the full. His shooting took him far
afield, and he saw very little of Gabrielle in the daytime. He kept
away deliberately, for her condition made her strange and irritable at
times, and he did not consider that devotion to her in a difficulty for
which he had not been responsible was part of his contract. Later, no
doubt, his turn would come. For the present, moreover, he felt that he
could not quite trust himself, and the fear that his suppressed
grudging might make him lose control of his temper made him anxious to
avoid the risk. Gabrielle was thankful for this. She never felt
unkindly towards him, and yet she was glad when she could feel sure of
not seeing him for a time. In the dusk he would return, too drugged
with air and exercise to take much notice of her, and for this also she
was thankful.

One evening in February, when Gabrielle was sitting in a dream over her
turf fire, Considine came home from a day's blackcock shooting in the
woods on the edge of the lake. She did not hear him coming, for the
garden path was now deep in fallen leaves. As he turned to open the
house door Considine saw a small shadow moving under the garden hedge.
He thought it was a rabbit, and quickly, without considering, he
slipped a cartridge into his gun, aimed at it, and fired. The sound of
a shattering report at close quarters broke Gabrielle's dream,
recalling an old horror. She jumped to her feet and cried out.
Considine, hearing her cry, dropped his gun and ran into the house. He
found her standing with her hands pressed to her eyes and trembling
violently. She did not see him when he called her name, and then,
still shaken like a po