And indeed this morning Squire Willyams, who had taken over the hounds after Squire Moyle’s death, had given secret orders to his huntsmen; and the pack was waiting at Three-barrow Turnpike, a couple of miles inland from Carwithiel.  At half-past ten the mourners drained their glasses, shook the crumbs off their riding-breeches, and took leave; and after halting outside Carwithiel gates to unpin and pocket their hat-bands, headed for the meet with one accord.

A few minutes before noon Squire Willyams, seated on his grey by the edge of Three-barrow Brake, and listening to every sound within the covert, happened to glance an eye across the valley, and let out a low whistle.

“Well!” said one of a near group of horsemen catching sight of the rider pricking toward them down the farther slope, “I knew en for unbeliever; but this beats all!”

“And his awnly son not three hours under the mould!  Brought up in France as a youngster he was, and this I s’pose is what comes of reading Voltaire.  My lord for manners, and no more heart than a wormed nut—­that’s Sir Harry, and always was.”

Squire Willyams slewed himself round in his saddle.  He spoke quietly at fifteen yards’ distance, but each word reached the group of horsemen as clear as a bell.

“Rablin,” he said, “as a damned fool oblige me during the next few minutes by keeping your mouth shut.”

With this he resumed his old attitude and his business of watching the covert side; removing his eyes for a moment to nod as Sir Harry rode up and passed on to join the group behind him.

He had scarcely done so when deep in the undergrowth of blackthorn a hound challenged.

“Spendigo for a fiver!—­and well found, by the tune of it,” cried Sir Harry.  “See that patch of grey wall, Rablin—­there, in a line beyond the Master’s elbow?  I lay you an even guinea that’s where my gentleman comes over.”

But honest reprobation mottled the face of Mr. Rablin, squireen; and as an honest man he spoke out.  Let it go to his credit, because as a rule he was a snob and inclined to cringe.

“I did not expect”—­he cleared his throat—­“to see you out to-day, Sir Harry.”

Sir Harry winced, and turned on them all a grey, woeful face.

“That’s it,” he said.  “I can’t bide home.  I can’t bide home.”

Honoria bided home with her child and mourned for the dead.  As a clever woman—­far cleverer than her husband—­she had seen his faults while he lived; yet had liked him enough to forgive without difficulty.  But now these faults faded, and by degrees memory reared an altar to him as a man little short of divine.  At the worst he had been amiable.  A kinder husband never lived.  She reproached herself bitterly with the half-heartedness of her response to his love; to his love while it dwelt beside her, unvarying in cheerful kindness.  For (it was the truth, alas! and a worm that gnawed