hes of the
cedar-trees seemed printed black on the grey-blue paper of the sky; all
was cold, still witchery out there, and not very far away an owl was
hooting.

The Reverend Husell Barter, about to enter the conservatory for a breath
of air, was arrested by the sight of a couple half-hidden by a bushy
plant; side by side they were looking at the moonlight, and he knew them
for Mrs. Bellew and George Pendyce. Before he could either enter or
retire, he saw George seize her in his arms. She seemed to bend her head
back, then bring her face to his. The moonlight fell on it, and on the
full, white curve of her neck. The Rector of Worsted Skeynes saw, too,
that her eyes were closed, her lips parted.

CHAPTER VI

INFLUENCE OF THE REVEREND HUSSELL BARTER

Along the walls of the smoking-room, above a leather dado, were prints of
horsemen in night-shirts and nightcaps, or horsemen in red coats and
top-hats, with words underneath such as:

"'Yeoicks' says Thruster; 'Yeoicks' says Dick. 'My word! these d---d
Quornites shall now see the trick!'"

Two pairs of antlers surmounted the hearth, mementoes of Mr. Pendyce's
deer-forest, Strathbegally, now given up, where, with the assistance of
his dear old gillie Angus McBane, he had secured the heads of these
monarchs of the glen. Between them was the print of a personage in
trousers, with a rifle under his arm and a smile on his lips, while two
large deerhounds worried a dying stag, and a lady approached him on a
pony.

The Squire and Sir James Malden had retired; the remaining guests were
seated round the fire. Gerald Pendyce stood at a side-table, on which
was a tray of decanters, glasses, and mineral water.

"Who's for a dhrop of the craythur? A wee dhrop of the craythur? Rector,
a dhrop of the craythur? George, a dhrop--"

George shook his head. A smile was on his lips, and that smile had in it
a quality of remoteness, as though it belonged to another sphere, and had
strayed on to the lips of this man of the world against his will. He
seemed trying to conquer it, to twist his face into its habitual shape,
but, like the spirit of a strange force, the smile broke through. It had
mastered him, his thoughts, his habits, and his creed; he was stripped of
fashion, as on a thirsty noon a man stands stripped for a cool plunge
from which he hardly cares if he come up again.

And this smile, not by intrinsic merit, but by virtue of its strangeness,
attracted the