rabbits." He swung an imaginary gun to his
shoulder and sighted it at a quarry which seemed to Isabel to be
equally imaginary. "See him? Under that heap of stones left of
the beech ring." Isabel's vision was both keen and practised, but
she saw nothing till the rabbit showed his white scut in a
flickering leap to earth.

"You have jolly good eyes," she conceded, still rather
grudgingly.

"So have bunnies, unluckily. Major Clowes tells me there's
pretty good shooting over Wanhope. I suppose your brother looks
after it, for of course Clowes can do nothing. It was a great
stroke of luck for my cousin, getting hold of a fellow like Val."

"I don't know about that. It was a great stroke of luck for
Val."

"I want so much to meet him. I'm disappointed at missing him this
afternoon. I remember him perfectly in the army, though he was
only a boy then and I wasn't much more myself. He must be close
on thirty now. But when I met him this morning it struck me he
hadn't altered much." Isabel, looking up eager-eyed, felt
faintly and mysteriously chilled. Was there a point of cruelty
in Hyde's smile? as there was now and then in his cousin's: she
had seen Bernard Clowes watching his wife with the same secret
glow.

"Val is old for his age," she said. "He always seems much older
than my other brother, although there are only two or three years
between them."

"Probably his spell in the army aged him. It must have been a
formative experience."

This time Isabel had no doubt about it, there was certainly a
touch of cruel irony in Hyde's soft voice. Her breath came fast.
"Why do you say that": she cried--"say it like that?"

The smile faded: Lawrence turned, startled out of his self-possession.
"Like what?"

"As if you we're sneering at Val!"

"I?-- My dear Miss Isabel, aren't you a little fanciful?"

Isabel supposed so too, on second thoughts: how could any man
sneer at a record like Val's: unless indeed it were with that
peculiarly graceless sneer which springs from jealousy? And,
little as she liked Captain Hyde, she could not think him weak
enough for that. She blushed again, this time without any rubric,
and hung her head. "I'm sorry! But you did say it as if you
didn't mean it. Perhaps you think we make too much fuss over
Val? But in these sleepy country villages exciting things don't
happen every day. I dare say you've had scores of adventures
since that time you met Val. But Chilmark hasn't