“Stop!  I must know about it.  Tell me; how did it happen?”

“I can’t talk about it to you.”

“Why not?  Do you think I condone this outrage?  Do you think I can support such means of warfare?  You do not know me, Mr. Shaw; you do not know an Englishwoman’s love of fairness.”

“By Jove, do you mean it?” his eyes lighted up.  “But, after all, you belong to the other camp,” he added dejectedly.  “I—­I wish to heavens, Miss Drake, you were not one of them!”

“My brother—­Cecil would not have permitted this,” she tried to apologize, remembering with a cold heart that Lord Bazelhurst had given the very instructions of which this was the result.

“We can’t discuss it, Miss Drake.  Some one from your side of the line killed my dog and then fired at me.  I’ll admit I was trespassing, but not until the dog was shot.  He was on Lady Bazelhurst’s land when he was shot.  It was not until after that that I trespassed, if you are pleased to call it such.  But I was unarmed; hang the luck!” The way he said it conveyed much to her understanding.

“Tell me, please.”

“I’ve had murder in my heart for half an hour, Miss Drake.  Somehow you soothe me.”  He sat down on the log again and leaned his head upon his hand.  With his eyes upon the dead dog he went on, controlling his anger with an effort:  “I rode down the river road this morning for a change, intending to go up later on to our trysting place through the wood.”  She heard him call it a trysting place without a thought of resentment or shame.  “When I came to the log there I stopped, but Bonaparte, lawless old chap, kept on.  I paid no attention to him, for I was thinking of—­of something else.  He had raced around in the forbidden underbrush for some time before I heard the report of a gun near at hand.  The dog actually screamed like a human being.  I saw him leap up from the ground and then roll over.  Of course, I—­well, I trespassed.  Without thinking of my own safety I flew to where the dog was lying.  He looked up into my face and whined just as he died.  I don’t remember how I got off the horse.  The next I knew I was rushing blindly into the brush toward a place where I saw smoke, cursing like a fiend.  Then came the second shot and the stinging in my arm.  It brought me to my senses.  I stopped and a moment later I saw a man running down along the bank of the stream.  I—­oh, well, there isn’t any more to tell.  I don’t know who fired the shots.  I couldn’t see his face.”

“It was Tompkins,” she cried.  “I know it was.  He had his orders—­” but she checked herself in confusion.

“His orders?  Do you mean to say—­Miss Drake, did your brother instruct him to kill me?” She quailed beneath his look.

“—­I can’t say anything more about it, Mr. Shaw,” she murmured, so piteously that he was touched.  For a seemingly interminable length of time his hard eyes looked into hers and then they softened.