Maltwood.

And behind all this some mystery lay. He was essentially a man of
secrets.

Some people declared that he had married ten years ago, and gave a
circumstantial account of how he had wedded the daughter of a noble
Spanish house, but that a month later she had been accidentally drowned
in the Bay of Fontarabia, and that the tragedy had ever preyed upon his
mind. But upon his feminine entanglements he was ever silent. He was a
merry fellow, full of bright humour, and excellent company. But to the
world he wore a mask that was impenetrable.

At that moment he was shooting with his old friend Tredennick, who lived
close to St. Fillans, on the picturesque Loch Earn, when the general,
hearing of his presence in the neighbourhood, had sent him an invitation
to accompany him on his inspection.

Walter had accepted for one reason only. In the invitation the general
had remarked that he and his stepdaughter Enid were staying at the
Panmure Hotel at Monifieth--so well known to golfers--and that after the
inspection he hoped they would lunch together.

Now, Walter had met Enid Orlebar six months before at Biarritz, where she
had been nursing at the Croix Rouge Hospital in the Hotel du Palais, and
the memory of that meeting had lingered with him. He had long desired to
see her again, for her pale beauty had somehow attracted him--attracted
him in a manner that no woman's face had ever attracted him before.

Hitherto he had held cynical notions concerning love and matrimony, but
ever since he had met Enid Orlebar in that winter hotel beside the sea,
and had afterwards discovered her to be stepdaughter of Sir Hugh Elcombe,
he had found himself reflecting upon his own loneliness.

At luncheon he was to come face to face with her again. It was of this he
was thinking more than of the merits of mountain batteries or the
difficulties of limbering or unlimbering.

"See! there they are!" exclaimed the general, suddenly pointing with his
gloved hand.

Fetherston strained his eyes towards the horizon, but declared that he
could detect nothing.

"They're lying behind that rising ground to the left of the magazine
yonder," declared the general, whose keen vision had so often served him
in good stead. Then, turning on his heel and scanning the grey horizon
seaward, he added: "They're going to fire out on to the Gaa between those
two lighthouses on Buddon Ness. By Jove!" he laughed, "the men in them
will get a bit of a shock