“What!  They lie in ambush here, whilst the men drive the birds towards them, to be shot?”

“It’s sport,” rejoined the other indifferently.

“I see.  And here are the old cartridges.”  A heap of them lay close by amid the ling.  “I don’t wonder that Mr. March seemed a little ashamed of himself.”

“But surely you knew all about this sort of thing!” said Mrs. Borisoff, with a little laugh of impatience.

“No, I didn’t.”

She had picked up one of the cartridge-cases, and, after examining it, her eyes wandered about the vast-rolling moor.  The wind sang low; the clouds sailed across the mighty dome of heaven; not a human dwelling was visible, and not a sound broke upon nature’s infinite calm.

“It amazes me,” Irene continued, subduing her voice.

“Incredible that men can come up here just to bang guns and see beautiful birds fall dead!  One would think that what they saw here would stop their hands—­that this silence would fill their minds and hearts, and make it impossible!”

Her voice had never trembled with such emotion in Helen’s hearing.  It was not Irene’s habit to speak in this way.  She had the native reticence of English women, preferring to keep silence when she felt strongly, or to disguise her feeling with irony and jest.  But the hour and the place overcame her; a noble passion shone in her clear eyes, and thrilled in her utterance.

“What barbarians!”

“Yet you know they are nothing of the kind,” objected Helen.  “At least, not all of them.”

“Mr. March?—­You called him, yourself, a fine barbarian, quoting from Matthew Arnold.  I never before understood how true that description was.”

“I assure you, it doesn’t apply to him, whatever I may have said in joke.  This shooting is the tradition of a certain class.  It’s one of the ways in which great, strong men get their necessary exercise.  Some of them feel, at moments, just as you do, I’ve no doubt; but there they are, a lot of them together, and a man can’t make himself ridiculous, you know.”

“You’re not like yourself in this, Helen,” said Irene.  “You’re not speaking as you think.  Another time, you’ll confess it’s abominable savagery, with not one good word to be said for it.  And more contemptible than I ever suspected!  I’m so glad I’ve seen this.  It helps to clear my thoughts about—­about things in general.”

She flung away the little yellow cylinder-flung it far from her with disgust, and, as if to forget it, plucked as she walked on a spray of heath, which glowed with its purple bells among the redder ling.  Helen’s countenance was shadowed.  She spoke no more for several minutes.

When two days had passed, March again came riding up to the Castle, and lunched with the ladies.  Irene was secretly vexed.  At breakfast she had suggested a whole day’s excursion, which her friend persuaded her to postpone; the reason must have been Helen’s private knowledge that Mr. March was coming.  In consequence, the lunch fell short of perfect cheerfulness.  For reasons of her own, Irene was just a little formal in her behaviour to the guest; she did not talk so well as usual, and bore herself as a girl must who wishes, without unpleasantness, to check a man’s significant approaches.