ce that followed he looked at her again with grim
comprehension. "P'r'aps you don't care for animals," he suggested
cynically. "To change the subject, do you know we are leaving the
hunt behind?"

She reined in somewhat reluctantly. "I suppose we had better go back."

"If your majesty decrees," said Nap.

He pulled the mare round and stood motionless, waiting for her to pass.
He sat arrogantly at his ease. She could not fail to note that his
horsemanship was magnificent. The mare stood royally as though she bore
a king. The man's very insignificance of bulk seemed to make him the
more superb.

"Will you deign to lead the way?" he said.

And Anne passed him with a vague sense of uneasiness that almost
amounted to foreboding. For it seemed to her as if for those few moments
he had imposed his will upon hers, had without effort overthrown all
barriers of conventional reserve, and had made her acknowledge in him
the mastery of man.

Rejoining the hunt, she made her first deliberate attempt to avoid him,
an attempt that was so far successful that for the next hour she saw
nothing of him beyond casual glimpses. She did not join her husband, for
he resented her proximity in the hunting-field.

They drew blank in a wood above the first kill, but finally found after
considerable delay along a stubbly stretch of ground bordering Baronmead,
a large estate that the eldest Errol had just bought. The fox headed
straight for the Baronmead woods and after him streamed the hunt
pell-mell along a stony valley.

It was not Anne's intention to be in at a second death that day, and she
deliberately checked the grey's enthusiasm when he would have borne her
headlong through the scampering crowd. To his indignation, instead of
pursuing the chase in the valley, she headed him up the hill. He
protested with vehemence, threatening to rebel outright, but Anne was
determined, and eventually she had her way. Up the hill they went.

It was a scramble to reach the top, for the ground was steep and sloppy,
but on the summit of the ridge progress was easier. She gave the grey the
rein and he carried her forward at a canter. From here she saw the last
of the horsemen below her sweep round the curve towards Baronmead, and
the hubbub growing fainter in the distance told her that the hounds were
already plunging through the woods. Ahead of her the ridge culminated in
a bare knoll whence it was evident that she could overlook a considerable
stret