“Where are you going?”

“To some outlying fields of ours on the Windmill Hill.  There is a tenant there who wants to see me.  He is a prosy person with a host of grievances.  I took my gun as a possible means of escape from him.”

“Windmill Hill?  I know the name.  Oh!  I remember:  it was there—­my father has just been telling me—­that your father and he shot the pair of kestrels, when they were boys together.”

Her tone was quite light, but somehow it had an accent, an emphasis, which made Aldous Raeburn supremely uncomfortable.  In his disquiet, he thought of various things to say; but he was not ready, nor naturally effusive; the turn of them did not please him; and he remained silent.

Meantime Marcella’s heart was beating fast.  She was meditating a coup.

“Mr. Raeburn!”

“Yes!”

“Will you think me a very extraordinary person if I ask you a question?  Your father and mine were great friends, weren’t they, as boys?—­your family and mine were friends, altogether?”

“I believe so—­I have always heard so,” said her companion, flushing still redder.

“You knew Uncle Robert—­Lord Maxwell did?”

“Yes—­as much as anybody knew him—­but—­”

“Oh, I know:  he shut himself up and hated his neighbours.  Still you knew him, and papa and your father were boys together.  Well then, if you won’t mind telling me—­I know it’s bold to ask, but I have reasons—­why does Lord Maxwell write to papa in the third person, and why has your aunt, Miss Raeburn, never found time in all these weeks to call on mamma?”

She turned and faced him, her splendid eyes one challenge.  The glow and fire of the whole gesture—­the daring of it, and yet the suggestion of womanish weakness in the hand which trembled against her dress and in the twitching lip—­if it had been fine acting, it could not have been more complete.  And, in a sense, acting there was in it.  Marcella’s emotions were real, but her mind seldom deserted her.  One half of her was impulsive and passionate; the other half looked on and put in finishing touches.

Acting or no, the surprise of her outburst swept the man beside her off his feet.  He found himself floundering in a sea of excuses—­not for his relations, but for himself.  He ought never to have intruded; it was odious, unpardonable; he had no business whatever to put himself in her way!  Would she please understand that it was an accident?  It should not happen again.  He quite understood that she could not regard him with friendliness.  And so on.  He had never so lost his self-possession.

Meanwhile Marcella’s brows contracted.  She took his excuses as a fresh offence.