THREE days after her visit to the theatre with Sir Joseph Rayner, Joy Gargrave went north to Westmorland, accompanied by Miss La Farge. She was staying with old friends a few miles from the home of Sir James Bracknell at Harrow Fell, and her hostess, remembering Dick Bracknell’s devotion to her, gossiped freely.

“You remember Sir James’ eldest son, the one whom we used to say ran on your heels, Joy?”

“Yes,” answered Joy, in a voice that was not very encouraging.

“He went to the dogs—all the way. There was a bad scandal, and though it was hushed up for Sir James’ sake, Dick Bracknell had to run the country. No one knows where he is now or whether he is alive or dead, but it is thought the latter; anyway, we are all beginning to look on Geoffrey as the heir of Harrow Fell. He is coming over here at the week-end for the final grouse-shoot of the season, and Adrian Rayner is coming also. Your uncle fished for an invitation for him, and my husband could not very well refuse, you know. I fancy,” she added with a knowing little laugh, “it isn’t merely grouse he is after.”

Joy gave no sign of understanding, but when the week-end arrived, bringing with it Adrian Rayner,[141] she was left in no uncertainty as to her cousin’s intentions. He haunted her steps. He was always at hand with assistance which she did not want; and when Geoffrey Bracknell also arrived, there was something like open rivalry between them. Her friend and hostess laughed.

“You will have a brace of proposals before the shoot is over, Joy.”

“Not if I can help it,” answered Joy quickly.

“You will not be able to help it,” was the reply. “They are both determined young men and their minds are made up.”

“So is mine,” replied Joy.

Yet it was as her hostess said. On the day of the shoot, Geoffrey Bracknell walked with her across the moor towards the “butts” built of turf and behind which they were to wait for the driven birds. They reached her own shelter first, and as she dropped to an improvised seat, Geoffrey Bracknell halted and looked down at her.

“Miss Gargrave, there is—er—something that I want to say, and to—a—ask you.”

She looked up and met his honest eyes, eyes that to her mind recalled not his brother, her husband, but the eyes of his cousin Corporal Bracknell of the Mounted Police. What she read there brought a quick flush to her face, and she hastily put up a protesting hand.

“Please, Mr. Bracknell, don’t! Don’t spoil our friendship!”

“Ah!” said the young man, his face paling a little, “you understand what I want. Is it really quite impossible?”

[142]

“Yes,” she answered with directness, “it is quite impossible.”

Geoffrey Bracknell whistled softly to himself. He had suffered a blow, but he strove to behave like a gentleman. “Then I am sorry to have troubled you, Miss Gargrave. Of course I knew that I was not—er—worthy—”

“Oh, it is not that,” she intervened in a distressed voice. “It is—something else, it has nothing to do with you at all!”

“But it knocks me out!” he said trying to smile. “Well, it is the fortune of war. I suppose that I shall have to persuade the governor to let me go on a big game trip, now. That is, the proper thing to do under the circumstances, isn’t it?”

Again she met his eyes, he was still smiling, but she could see the effort it required. She held out a hand impulsively.

“Geoffrey,” she said, “don’t let this spoil your life, or our friendship. I cannot now explain what makes my refusal imperative. Some day I may be able to, and when I can I shall tell you, if you are still my friend.”

“Then you’ll have to tell me,” he said frankly, “for I shall always be that. Couldn’t be anything else, you know.... But there’s the head-keeper signalling; I must move on to my own butt. Good hunting!”

He laughed with forced lightness and walked away. Joy watched him go with pain at her heart. How like his cousin he was, and how unlike his brother! She felt very sorry for the boy, and the[143] incident had disturbed her so much that she shot very badly. Again and again as the birds came driving towards her she either didn’t fire or fired too late, but from the butt where Geoffrey Bracknell waited, the shots came at regular intervals, and she saw the birds drop every time. Then a covey of grouse came driving with the wind straight towards her neighbour’s shelter. She waited. There was a sharp report, and a sudden cry, and the birds drove on. She looked towards the shelter. It was almost in a line with her own, and she could see something lying on the ground behind it. Another flock of birds drove down the wind, but there was no shot from Geoffrey Bracknell’s gun. A sudden fear assailed her. Leaving her own gun resting against the turf wall, she ran towards the next butt. Before she reached it, she knew that something dreadful had happened, for she could see that the young man was lying on his back in the heather. She reached the shelter and a cry broke from her.

White faced and still, with a ghastly wound in his right temple, Geoffrey Bracknell lay there, quite dead. As she looked at him, she had no doubt whatever about the matter, and a great agony surged up in her heart.

Had he—? Her eyes fell on the gun close by, and before the thought which had assailed her was completed she knew that it was groundless. The lock of the gun was blown out, and the base of both barrels was fractured. It had been an accident.

[144]

“Thank God,” she whispered to herself, delivered from the fear which had assailed her, “it was not—”

She dropped on her knees by his side and took his hand. It was already cold, as she raised it to her lips.

“Poor boy! Poor boy!”

She was in tears as she rose from her knees, and began to walk towards the next butt. The news spread quickly and the shoot was stopped, and the body was taken first to the village, and later in the day to Harrow Fell. And that night Joy’s hostess, discussing the tragedy, set a problem before her, which kept her awake far into the night.

“Poor Sir James,” she said. “He is left without a child, for as I told you no one knows anything at all about Dick Bracknell, and it doesn’t matter very much whether he is alive or dead, to any one but his cousin Roger, for he can never return to England.”

“To his cousin Roger,” echoed Joy, visioning the corporal, “why should it matter to him?”

“Because if Dick is out of the way, Harrow Fell will pass to him on Sir James’ death. The estates are entailed, you know.”

Instantly Joy saw the difficulties of the situation. Dick Bracknell might be dead, or he might be very much alive. In the former case, the way was quite clear for his cousin; but in the latter, there were possibilities that filled her with dread. The corporal had left North Star in an endeavour to solve the mystery of the disappearance of his cousin’s body. If Dick Bracknell were yet alive[145] and he overtook him, he would probably try to effect his arrest, and if Dick resisted there might be trouble, and possibly Corporal Bracknell might be driven to have recourse to arms. Suppose he shot his cousin, and so, in innocence, cleared his own way to the succession of Harrow Fell? Her face clouded, and an anxious look came into her eyes. She was recalled to herself by her hostess’s voice.

“A penny for your thoughts, Joy.”

Joy prevaricated a little. “I was thinking what a strange coil life is!” she answered.

“In what way?”

“Well, the last person I spoke to, before I left North Star to come to England, was Roger Bracknell!”

“Roger Bracknell!” echoed her hostess in surprise.

“Yes, he is in the Mounted Police, and, in the way of duty, he came to North Star, three days or so before I left.”

“That is an odd coincidence,” was the comment. “What did you think of him, my dear?”

Joy answered with reserve. “He seemed to be very nice—a gentleman, you know.”

Her hostess smiled. “Yes, Roger is that—the right sort, as my husband would say. He, at any rate, will never disgrace the Bracknell clan, for he is at the opposite pole from his cousin Dick. What did he look like?”

“Like a mounter!” answered Joy quickly.

“A mounter! Don’t talk slang, Joy. Interpret, please.”

“Well,” answered Joy smilingly, “a mounter is[146] a member of the Royal North West Mounted Police, who are as fine a body of men as you may find from one end of the Empire to the other.”

“And therefore Roger Bracknell is a fine man, hey?”

“He struck me as being so!” answered Joy composedly. Her friend glanced at her with shrewd eyes. “Hum!” she said. “You are very discreet, my dear Joy. Now you know that the truth is that Roger Bracknell is a man who takes the eye, a handsome man in fact, and why you should be reluctant to own up—”

“Own up! What do you mean?” interrupted Joy, her face growing suddenly scarlet.

“Nothing,” laughed her friend, “except that Roger Bracknell is a man to whom few women could be as indifferent as you pretend to be. But I must cut this conversation short. There’s Adrian Rayner looking for you, and coming this way. I’ll send him on to you.”

“Please don’t,” cried Joy; but her hostess only laughed, and as she walked towards the young man Joy fled to her room.

Late into the night she co............