a coolly; but there was a
good deal of colour in her cheeks; and she knew it and pulled her big
motor veil across her face, fastening it under her chin. All of which
amused Grace Ferrall infinitely until the subtler significance of the
girl's mental processes struck her, sobering her own thoughts. Sylvia,
too, had grown serious in her preoccupation; and the partie-a-deux
terminated a few minutes later in a duet of silence over the tea-cups in
the gun-room.

The weather had turned warm and misty; one of those sudden sea-coast
changes had greyed the blue in the sky, spreading a fine haze over land
and water, effacing the crisp sparkle of the sea, dulling the westering
sun.

A few moments later Sylvia, glancing over her shoulder, noticed that a
fine misty drizzle had clouded the casements. That meant that her usual
evening stroll on the cliffs with Quarrier, before dressing for dinner,
was off. And she drew a little breath of unconscious relief as Marion
Page walked in, her light woollen shooting-jacket, her hat, shoes, and
the barrels of the fowling-piece tucked under her left arm-pit, all
glimmering frostily with powdered rain drops.

She said something to Grace Ferrall about the mist promising good
point-shooting in the morning, took the order book from a servant,
jotted down her request to be called an hour before sunrise, filled in
the gun-room records with her score--the species and number bagged, and
the number of shells used--and accepting the tea offered, drew out a
tiny cigarette-case of sweet-bay wood heavily crusted with rose-gold.

"With whom were you shooting?" asked Grace, as Marion dropped one
well-shaped leg over the other and wreathed her delicately tanned
features in smoke.

"Stephen Siward and Blinky. They're at it yet, but I had some letters
to write." She glanced leisurely at Sylvia and touched the ash-tray with
the whitening end of her cigarette. "That dog you let Mr. Siward have is
a good one. I'm taking him to Jersey next week for the cock-shooting."

Sylvia returned her calm gaze blankly.

An unreasonable and disagreeable shock had passed through her.

"My North Carolina pointers are useless for close work," observed Marion
indifferently; and she leaned back, watching the blue smoke curling
upward from her cigarette.

Sylvia, distrait, but with downcast eyes on fire under the fringed
lids, was thinking of the cheque Siward had given her for Sagamore. The
transaction, for her, had been a