procured for her by
Mr. Pendyce at a very reasonable price, and corked between meals with a
special cork. She offered it to George.

"Try some of my burgundy, dear; it's so nice."

But George refused and asked for whisky-and-soda, glancing at the butler,
who brought it in a very yellow state.

Under the influence of dinner the Squire recovered equanimity, though he
still dwelt somewhat sadly on the future.

"You young fellows," he said, with a friendly look at George, "are such
individualists. You make a business of enjoying yourselves. With your
piquet and your racing and your billiards and what not, you'll be used up
before you're fifty. You don't let your imaginations work. A green old
age ought to be your ideal, instead of which it seems to be a green
youth. Ha!" Mr. Pendyce looked at his daughters till they said:

"Oh, Father, how can you!"

Norah, who had the more character of the two, added:

"Isn't Father rather dreadful, Mother?"

But Mrs. Pendyce was looking at her son. She had longed so many evenings
to see him sitting there.

"We'll have a game of piquet to-night, George."

George looked up and nodded with a glum smile.

On the thick, soft carpet round the table the butler and second footman
moved. The light of the wax candles fell lustrous and subdued on the
silver and fruit and flowers, on the girls' white necks, on George's
well-coloured face and glossy shirt-front, gleamed in the jewels on his
mother's long white fingers, showed off the Squire's erect and still
spruce figure; the air was languorously sweet with the perfume of azaleas
and narcissus bloom. Bee, with soft eyes, was thinking of young Tharp,
who to-day had told her that he loved her, and wondering if father would
object. Her mother was thinking of George, stealing timid glances at his
moody face. There was no sound save the tinkle of forks and the voices
of Norah and the Squire, talking of little things. Outside, through the
long opened windows, was the still, wide country; the full moon, tinted
apricot and figured like a coin, hung above the cedar-trees, and by her
light the whispering stretches of the silent fields lay half enchanted,
half asleep, and all beyond that little ring of moonshine, unfathomed and
unknown, was darkness--a great darkness wrapping from their eyes the
restless world.

CHAPTER III

THE SINISTER NIGHT

On the day of the big race at Kempton Park, in which the Ambler, starting
favouri