She did not answer for some time, but stood gazing at the landscape.  “I wish I knew,” she said at last.

He shook his head.  “Knowledge would be fatal.  It is the uncertainty that charms one.  A mist makes things wonderful.”

“One may lose one’s way.”

“All ways end at the same point, my dear Gladys.”

“What is that?”

“Disillusion.”

“It was my debut in life,” she sighed.

“It came to you crowned.”

“I am tired of strawberry leaves.”

“They become you.”

“Only in public.”

“You would miss them,” said Lord Henry.

“I will not part with a petal.”

“Monmouth has ears.”

“Old age is dull of hearing.”

“Has he never been jealous?”

“I wish he had been.”

He glanced about as if in search of something.  “What are you looking for?” she inquired.

“The button from your foil,” he answered.  “You have dropped it.”

She laughed.  “I have still the mask.”

“It makes your eyes lovelier,” was his reply.

She laughed again.  Her teeth showed like white seeds in a scarlet fruit.

Upstairs, in his own room, Dorian Gray was lying on a sofa, with terror in every tingling fibre of his body.  Life had suddenly become too hideous a burden for him to bear.  The dreadful death of the unlucky beater, shot in the thicket like a wild animal, had seemed to him to pre-figure death for himself also.  He had nearly swooned at what Lord Henry had said in a chance mood of cynical jesting.

At five o’clock he rang his bell for his servant and gave him orders to pack his things for the night-express to town, and to have the brougham at the door by eight-thirty.  He was determined not to sleep another night at Selby Royal.  It was an ill-omened place.  Death walked there in the sunlight.  The grass of the forest had been spotted with blood.

Then he wrote a note to Lord Henry, telling him that he was going up to town to consult his doctor and asking him to entertain his guests in his absence.  As he was putting it into the envelope, a knock came to the door, and his valet informed him that the head-keeper wished to see him.  He frowned and bit his lip.  “Send him in,” he muttered, after some moments’ hesitation.

As soon as the man entered, Dorian pulled his chequebook out of a drawer and spread it out before him.

“I suppose you have come about the unfortunate accident of this morning, Thornton?” he said, taking up a pen.

“Yes, sir,” answered the gamekeeper.

“Was the poor fellow married?  Had he any people dependent on him?” asked Dorian, looking bored.  “If so, I should not like them to be left in want, and will send them any sum of money you may think necessary.”

“We don’t know who he is, sir.  That is what I took the liberty of coming to you about.”