"

But it gradually appeared that, whatever her feelings might be towards
Rachel, she was ready to like Roddy. She walked with him, asked him
sensible questions, listened attentively to his rather lumbering
explanations. After a time, he almost forgot that she was a woman at
all--"Damn sensible and yet she never makes you feel a fool."

He liked her very much, though she obviously preferred Jacob, the
mongrel, to all other dogs in the place. He wondered as the days passed
whether she might not help him with Rachel. He would not speak to anyone
living about his own feelings for Rachel and his unhappiness, but he
thought that, perhaps, in a roundabout way, he might obtain from Miss
Rand some general wisdom that he could apply to his especial case.

The afternoon of Christmas Eve was cold and foggy and Roddy and Lizzie
sat over the fire in the hall waiting for Rachel, who had gone out for a
solitary walk. Roddy looking at his companion approved of the sharp
delicate little face with the firelight touching it to colour and
shadow; her dress was grey with a tiny brooch of old gold at her throat,
and she wore one ring of small pearls; the look of her gave him
pleasure.

"I wonder," Miss Rand said, "that you don't go where you'll get better
hunting--you don't hunt round here at all, do you?"

"A bit"--Roddy looked gravely at the fire--"I go very little though. You
see, Miss Rand, it's a case of bein' born down here and likin' the
place, don't you know. _Of course_ I'd love to have been born in a
huntin' country, but bein' here I've got fond of it, you see, and
wouldn't leave it for any huntin' anywhere."

She looked at him sharply: "You do love the place very much--I envy you
that."

Even as she spoke her consciousness of "the place" faced her; she had
always known that she was more acutely aware of the personality of her
surroundings than were most of her friends, but her experience here was
different from anything that she had ever known before.

She remembered that in the train she had been warned of some coming
event and now, sitting opposite to Roddy beside the blazing fire, she
was sharply and definitely frightened.

Rachel had already appealed to her; Roddy was appealing to her now, but
stronger than either of these demands was some force in herself, warning
her and raising in her the most conflicting, disturbing emotions.

The very silence of the house about them, the long green stretches of
the level field