flattered her, and she
had smiled, knowing what their compliments were worth, but she could not
smile now. Then she roused herself and went in quietly.

Festing met her next morning while the sun rose above the rounded masses
of the beech wood, and entering a dewy pasture they skirted a fence
half-smothered in briars. Both felt invigorated by the freshness of
the morning and brushed across the sparkling grass, engaged in careless
talk. By and by as Helen stooped to pick a mushroom a shrill scream came
from beyond the fence, and she rose with an angry color in her face.

"Oh!" she said; "that spoils everything!"

"What is it?" Festing asked as the pitiful scream rose again.

"A rabbit, choking, in a snare," she answered with a look of horror.

Festing leaped across a ditch and plunged into the briars. Helen heard
the rotten fence-rails smash and he vanished behind the thorny branches
that closed across the gap. She was glad he had gone so quickly; partly
because it was her wish, and partly because she saw the cry of pain had
moved him. She liked to think he was compassionate.

As a matter of fact, Festing's pity was soon mixed with rage as he came
upon a scene of barbarous cruelty. Three or four rabbits lay quiet upon
the grass, but there were others that struggled feebly at his approach;
their eyes protruding and strangling wires cutting into their
throats. He thought they were past his help, but one rolled round with
half-choked screams and he ran to it first. It was difficult to hold the
struggling animal while he opened the thin brass noose, but he set it
free, and it lay paralyzed with fear for a few moments before it ran
off.

Then he released the others as gently as he could. Their dew-draggled
bodies felt cold and limp and the wire had bitten deep into the swollen
flesh. Two, however, feebly crawled away and he carried another to
the mouth of a burrow, after which he wiped the dew and blood from
his hands, while his lips set in a firm line. He hoped he was not a
sentimentalist, and admitted that man must kill to eat; moreover he had
used the rifle in the Northern wilds. Once a hungry cinnamon bear had
raided the camp, and he remembered a certain big bull moose. That was
clean sport, for a man who faced such antagonists must shoot quick and
straight, but this torturing of small defenseless creatures revolted
him. Still he admitted that it might not have done so quite so much but
for the pain it caused the