Through the conservatory door, wide open to the lawn, a full moon flooded the country with pale gold light, and in that light the branches of the cedar-trees seemed printed black on the grey-blue paper of the sky; all was cold, still witchery out there, and not very far away an owl was hooting.

The Reverend Husell Barter, about to enter the conservatory for a breath of air, was arrested by the sight of a couple half-hidden by a bushy plant; side by side they were looking at the moonlight, and he knew them for Mrs. Bellew and George Pendyce.  Before he could either enter or retire, he saw George seize her in his arms.  She seemed to bend her head back, then bring her face to his.  The moonlight fell on it, and on the full, white curve of her neck.  The Rector of Worsted Skeynes saw, too, that her eyes were closed, her lips parted.

CHAPTER VI

INFLUENCE OF THE REVEREND HUSSELL BARTER

Along the walls of the smoking-room, above a leather dado, were prints of horsemen in night-shirts and nightcaps, or horsemen in red coats and top-hats, with words underneath such as: 

“‘Yeoicks’ says Thruster; ‘Yeoicks’ says Dick.  ’My word! these d—–­d Quornites shall now see the trick!’”

Two pairs of antlers surmounted the hearth, mementoes of Mr. Pendyce’s deer-forest, Strathbegally, now given up, where, with the assistance of his dear old gillie Angus McBane, he had secured the heads of these monarchs of the glen.  Between them was the print of a personage in trousers, with a rifle under his arm and a smile on his lips, while two large deerhounds worried a dying stag, and a lady approached him on a pony.

The Squire and Sir James Malden had retired; the remaining guests were seated round the fire.  Gerald Pendyce stood at a side-table, on which was a tray of decanters, glasses, and mineral water.

“Who’s for a dhrop of the craythur?  A wee dhrop of the craythur?  Rector, a dhrop of the craythur?  George, a dhrop—­”

George shook his head.  A smile was on his lips, and that smile had in it a quality of remoteness, as though it belonged to another sphere, and had strayed on to the lips of this man of the world against his will.  He seemed trying to conquer it, to twist his face into its habitual shape, but, like the spirit of a strange force, the smile broke through.  It had mastered him, his thoughts, his habits, and his creed; he was stripped of fashion, as on a thirsty noon a man stands stripped for a cool plunge from which he hardly cares if he come up again.

And this smile, not by intrinsic merit, but by virtue of its strangeness, attracted the eye of each man in the room; so, in a crowd, the most foreign-looking face will draw all glances.

The Reverend Husell Barter with a frown watched that smile, and strange thoughts chased through his mind.

“Uncle Charles, a dhrop of the craythur a wee dhrop of the craythur?”