Harding covered LaHume’s money, and the latter placed several hundred dollars more at the same odds.  Miss Lawrence heard he was betting against Wallace, and her eyes blazed with indignation.

“You go to Mr. LaHume,” she said to Marshall, “and ask him what odds he will give that Mr. Wallace does not win the game.  Do not tell him who wishes to know.”

“What odds Wallace does not win the game?” sneered LaHume, when Marshall sounded him.  “Five to one, up to a thousand dollars!”

Just before they teed off, Marshall put a crisp one-hundred-dollar note belonging to Miss Lawrence in Harding’s hands as stakeholder, and LaHume promptly covered it with five bills of the same denomination.  There were scores of smaller wagers with no such animus back of them.

Wallace won the toss and took the honour.  I doubt if there be any greater mental or nervous strain than that of making the initial stroke in an important golf contest.  The player realises that all eyes are on him, and unless he has nerves of steel and an absolute mental poise he is likely to fall the victim of a wave which surges against him as he grasps the shaft of his club.

Wallace’s first shot was the poorest I had seen him execute.  It went high and to the left, and for a moment I was sure it would not clear the fence, but it did, dropping in as thick a clump of swamp grass as can be found in Woodvale.  It left him fully one hundred and fifty yards from the cup.  It-was a most disappointing shot, and I instinctively turned and looked at LaHume.

That young gentleman was satisfied beyond measure.  There was something vindictive and repellent in the satisfied expression of his face.  I turned and watched Kirkaldy drive a beautiful ball within fifty yards of the cup.  The first hole is two hundred and eighty-five yards from the tee.

I found Wallace’s ball.  It was on a soggy spot of ground, with tall slush grass in front of it, but luckily there was room to swing a club back of it.  He studied it a moment intently.  It was a villainous lie.  I did not wish to give advice, but could not restrain myself.

“Better play safe,” I said.  “It will cost you only one stroke.”

“I think I can take it out,” he said, reaching in the bag for a heavy, old-fashioned lofting iron.

He took one glance at the green, and then came down on that ball as if he intended to drive it into the bowels of the earth.  I saw nothing but a shower of mud and a huge divot hurled up by the club-head as the wrists relaxed to save breaking the shaft.

Others saw the ball as it flicked the tips of the menacing grass and soared high in the air.  It struck on the near edge of the green.

“A bonny shot, mon; a guede clean shot as ere were made out thot muck!” exclaimed Kirkaldy, his face mantled with a grin of frank admiration.

It was a glorious recovery!  Miss Lawrence was fairly dancing for joy.  Kirkaldy laid his ball within a foot of the hole, and won it with a three against four for Wallace, the latter making bogy.  Wallace is unable to explain how he made a fluke of that first shot, and I am sure I have no idea.