Of the four great towers, one lay a shattered ruin, one only remained habitable.  Above the rooms occupied by Mrs. Borisoff and her guests was that which had imprisoned the Queen of Scots; a chamber of bare stone, with high embrasure narrowing to the slit of window which admitted daylight, and, if one climbed the sill, gave a glimpse of far mountains.  Down below, deep under the roots of the tower, was the Castle’s dungeon, black and deadly.  Early on the morrow Helen led her friend to see these things.  Then they climbed to the battlements, where the sun shone hot, and Helen pointed out the features of the vast landscape, naming heights, and little dales which pour their tributaries into the Ure, and villages lying amid the rich pasture.

“And yonder is Hawes,” said Irene, pointing to the head of the dale.

“Yes; too far to see.”

They did not exchange a look.  Irene spoke at once of something else.

There came to lunch Mrs. Borisoff’s cousin, a grouse-guest at a house some miles away.  He arrived on horseback, and his approach was watched with interest by two pairs of eyes from the Castle windows.  Mr. March looked well in the saddle, for he was a strong, comely man of about thirty, who lived mostly under the open sky.  Irene had met him only once, and that in a drawing-room; she saw him now to greater advantage, heard him talk freely of things he understood and enjoyed, and on the whole did not dislike him.  With Helen he was a favourite; she affected to make fun of him, but had confessed to Irene that she respected him more than any other of her county-family kinsfolk.  As he talked of his two days’ shooting, he seemed to become aware that Miss Derwent had no profound interest in this subject, and there fell from him an unexpected apology.

“Of course it isn’t a very noble kind of sport,” he said, with a laugh.  “One is invited—­one takes it in the course of things.  I prefer the big game, where there’s a chance of having to shoot for your life.”

“I suppose one must shoot something,” remarked Irene, as if musing a commonplace.

Marck took it with good nature, like a man who cannot remember whether that point of view ever occurred to him, but who is quite willing to think about it.  Indeed, he seemed more than willing to give attention to anything Miss Derwent choose to say:  something of this inclination had appeared even at their first meeting, and to-day it was more marked.  He showed reluctance when the hour obliged him to remount his horse.  Mrs. Borisoff’s hope that she might see him again before he left this part of the country received a prompt and cheerful reply.

Later, that afternoon, the two friends climbed the great hillside above the Castle, and rambled far over the moorland, to a windy height where they looked into deep wild Swaledale.  Their talk was only of the scenes around them, until, on their way back, they approached a line of three-walled shelters, built of rough stone, about the height of a man.  In reply to Irene’s question, Helen explained the use of these structures; she did so in an off-hand way, with the proper terms, and would have passed on, but Irene stood gazing.