ut on the edge of the common, examining cartridges, smoking a last
cigarette before the business of the morning, and chatting together over
the prospects of the day's sport. In the distance, a cloud of dust
indicated the approach of a fast-travelling motor-car.

"My dear Baron," Sir William Bounderby said, "I want you to change your
stand to-day. I must have a good man at the far corner as the birds go
off my land from there, and Addington was missing them shockingly
yesterday. Besides, there is a new man coming on your left, and I know
nothing of his shooting--nothing at all!"

Peter smiled.

"Anywhere you choose to put me, Sir William," he assented. "They came
badly for Addington yesterday, and well for me. However, I'll do my
best."

"I wish people wouldn't bring strangers, especially to the one shoot
where I'm keen about the bag. I told Portal he could bring his
brother-in-law, and he's bringing this foreign fellow instead. Don't
suppose he can shoot for nuts! Did you ever hear of him, I wonder? The
Count von Hern, he calls himself."

Peter was not on his guard and a little exclamation escaped him.

"Bernadine!" he murmured, softly. "So the game begins once more!"

His interest was unmistakable. It was not only the chill November air
which had brought a touch of colour to his cheeks and the light to his
eyes.

"You seem pleased," Sir William Bounderby remarked, curiously. "You do
know the fellow, then? Friend of yours, perhaps?"

Peter shook his head.

"Oh, yes! I know him, Sir William," he replied, "but I do not think that
he would call himself a friend of mine. I know nothing about his
shooting except that if he got a chance I think that he would like to
shoot me."

Sir William, who was a very literal man, looked grave.

"I am sorry," he said, "if you are likely to find this meeting in any
way awkward. I suppose there's nothing against him, eh?" he added, a
little nervously. "I invited him purely on the strength of his being a
guest of Portal's."

"The Count von Hern comes, I believe," Peter assured his host, "of a
distinguished European family. Socially there is nothing whatever
against him. We happen to have run up against each other once or twice,
that's all. That sort of thing will occur, you know, when the interests
of finance touch the border-line of politics."

"You have no objection to meeting him, then?" Sir William asked.

"Not the slightest," Peter replied. "I do not know exactly in w