There were still a good many people watching the game, for it was pleasant in those old-world gardens in the sunset hour.  The dried-up moat was now transformed into a garden filled with rhododendrons and bright azaleas, while the high ancient beech-hedges, the quaint old sundial with its motto:  “Each time ye shadowe turneth ys one daye nearer unto dethe,” and the old stone balustrades gray with lichen, all spoke mutely of those glorious days when the fierce horsemen of the Lairds of Rannoch were feared across the Border, and when many a prisoner of the Black Douglas had pined and died in those narrow stone chambers in the grim north tower that still stood high above.

Among the party strolling and lounging there prior to departure were quite a number of people I knew, people who had shooting-boxes in the vicinity and were my uncle’s friends.  In Scotland there is always a hearty hospitality among the sporting folk, and the laws of caste are far less rigorous than they are in England.

I was standing chatting with two ladies who were about to take leave of their hostess, when Leithcourt returned, but alone.  Hornby had not accompanied him.  Was it because he feared to again meet me?

In order to ascertain something regarding the man who had so mysteriously fled from Leghorn, I managed by the exercise of a little diplomacy to sit on the lawn with a young married woman named Tennant, wife of a cavalry captain, who was one of the house-party.  After a little time I succeeded in turning the conversation to her fellow guests, and more particularly to the man I knew as Hornby.

“Oh!  Mr. Woodroffe is most amusing,” declared the bright little woman.  “He’s always playing some practical joke or other.  After dinner he is usually the life and soul of our party.”

“Yes,” I said, “I like what little I have seen of him.  He’s a very good fellow, I should say.  I’ve heard that he’s engaged to Muriel,” I hazarded.  “Is that true?”

“Of course.  They’ve been engaged nearly a year, but he’s been abroad until quite lately.  He is rather close about his own affairs, and never talks about his travels and adventures, although one day Mr. Leithcourt declared that his hairbreadth escapes would make a most exciting book if ever written.”

“Leithcourt and he are evidently most intimate friends.”

“Oh, quite inseparable!” she laughed.  “And the other man who is always with them is that short, stout, red-faced old fellow standing over there with the lady in pale blue, Sir Ughtred Gardner.  Mr. Woodroffe has nicknamed him ‘Sir Putrid.’” And we both laughed.  “Of course, don’t say I said so,” she whispered.  “They don’t call him that to his face, but it’s so easy to make a mistake in his name when he’s not within hearing.  We women don’t care for him, so the nickname just fits.”

And she gossiped on, telling me much that I desired to know regarding the new tenant of Rannoch and his friends, and more especially of that man who had first introduced himself to me in the Consulate at Leghorn.