olour seemed to have faded out of his bronzed
face. His eyes were filled with that vague horror of the supernatural
common amongst the peasant folk of various localities. His voice shook.
The old fear was back again.

"You wouldn't put the beaters in there, Squire?" he faltered; "not that
there's one of them would go."

"Have we stumbled up against a local superstition?" the Duke enquired.

"That's not altogether local, your Grace," Middleton replied, "as the
Squire himself will tell you. I doubt whether there's a beater in all
Norfolk would go through the Black Wood, if you paid him red gold for
it.--Here, you lads."

He turned to the beaters, who were standing waiting for instructions a
few yards away. There were a dozen of them, stalwart men for the most
part, clad in rough smocks and breeches and carrying thick sticks.

"There's one of the gentlemen here," Middleton announced, addressing
them, "who wants to know if you'd go through the Black Wood of Dominey
for a sovereign apiece?--Watch their faces, your Grace.--Now then,
lads?"

There was no possibility of any mistake. The very suggestion seemed
to have taken the healthy sunburn from their cheeks. They fumbled with
their sticks uneasily. One of them touched his hat and spoke to Dominey.

"I'm one as 'as seen it, sir, as well as heard," he said. "I'd sooner
give up my farm than go nigh the place."

Caroline suddenly passed her arm through Dominey's. There was a note of
distress in her tone.

"Henry, you're an idiot!" she exclaimed. "It was my fault, Everard. I'm
so sorry. Just for one moment I had forgotten. I ought to have stopped
Henry at once. The poor man has no memory."

Dominey's arm responded for a moment to the pressure of her fingers.
Then he turned to the beaters.

"Well, no one is going to ask you to go to the Black Wood," he promised.
"Get round to the back of Hunt's stubbles, and bring them into the roots
and then over into the park. We will line the park fence. How is that,
Middleton?"

The keeper touched his hat and stepped briskly off.

"I'll just have a walk with them myself, sir," he said. "Them birds
do break at Fuller's corner. I'll see if I can flank them. You'll know
where to put the guns, Squire."

Dominey nodded. One and all the beaters were walking with most
unaccustomed speed towards their destination. Their backs were towards
the Black Wood. Terniloff came up to his host.

"Have I, by chance, been terribly tactless?" he