ir house after a hunting accident, and I was an
invalid there for several weeks."

"That so?" Again piercingly the American's eyes scanned her. "You're real
friendly then? With which in particular?"

She hesitated momentarily. Then, "I am very fond of Mrs. Errol," she
said, speaking very quietly. "But Nap was my first friend, and
afterwards Lucas--"

"Oh, Nap!"

There was such withering contempt in the exclamation that she had
perforce to remark it.

"Nap is evidently no favourite with you," she said.

He raised his brows till they nearly met his hair. "Nap, my dear lady,"
he drily observed, "is doubtless all right in his own sphere. It isn't
mine, and it isn't yours. I came over to this country at his request and
in his company, and a queerer devil it has never been my lot to
encounter. But what can you expect? I've never yet seen him in a blanket
and moccasins, but I imagine that he'd be considerably preferable that
way. I guess he's just a fish out of water on this side of civilisation."

"What can you mean?" Anne said.

For the second time that afternoon she felt as if the ground beneath her
had begun to tremble. She looked up at him with troubled eyes. Surely the
whole world was rocking!

"I mean what I say, madam," he told her curtly. "It's a habit of mine.
There is a powerful streak of red in Nap Errol's blood, or I am much
mistaken."

"Ah!" Anne said, and that was all. In a flash she understood him. She
felt as if he had performed some ruthless operation upon her, and she was
too exhausted to say more. Unconsciously her hand pressed her heart. It
was beating strangely, spasmodically; sometimes it did not beat at all.
For she knew beyond all doubting that what he said was true.

"I don't say the fellow is an out-and-out savage," Capper was saying.
"P'r'aps he'd be more tolerable if he were. But the fatal streak is
there. Never noticed it? I thought you women noticed everything. Oh, I
can tell you he's made things hum on our side more times than I've
troubled to count. Talk of the devil in New York and you very soon find
the conversation drifting round to Nap Errol. Now and then he has a lapse
into sheer savagery, and then there is no controlling him. It's just as
the fit takes him. He's never to be trusted. It's an ineradicable taint."

She shivered at the words, but still she did not speak.

Capper went unconcernedly on. "I fancy Lucas once thought he was going to
make a gentleman of him. A gentl