ggling to
adjust the fire-arm she held in such a position as to do herself some
mortal injury, he espied Cleopatra,--Cleopatra now a dangerous
murderess.

He dashed madly towards her, stooped to snatch her weapon, a rook-rifle,
from her, and swinging it high in the air, flung it back among the
bushes and bracken he had just crossed.

"Are you mad!" he cried.

But there was no response. The girl had fallen back in a swoon, and a
twitching of her fingers showed that even now her half-conscious mind
was busy trying to find the trigger of the deadly rook-rifle.

A rapid examination revealed the fact that she was quite uninjured, and
concluding that she could be safely left where she was for a few
minutes, he ran off again in the direction of the wounded or murdered
man.

* * * * *

As to what happened after that, the reader has already been informed.

Lord Henry, feeling too deeply relieved by the sight of Stephen's slight
wound, to be able altogether to conceal his triumphant joy, declared
that the whole thing had been an accident caused by his unpardonable
ignorance of a rook-rifle; and fortunately, owing to the excitement
occasioned by Stephen's wound and the dressing of it, the other members
of the party were not too critical in their acceptance of his story.

He dressed the wound with frantic speed, glancing constantly into the
woods to his left as he did so; muttered a few comforting words and
prayers for forgiveness to the boy on whose friendship he thought he
could count, and after having been assured that one of the keepers had
gone to the garage to order a car to be sent for the doctor, to the
complete astonishment of all present, he apologised and ran back into
the woods again.

CHAPTER XIX

Lord Henry could have flown amid the foliage of the trees, he could have
leaped from branch to branch,--aye, he could have pranced from the tip
of each leaf of bracken on his way,--so elated did he feel that now, at
least, the worst was over, the worst was known, and what remained to be
done was within the compass of his own powers, and free from any
treacherous element of luck or accident.

But his joy at the comparatively harmless outcome of Cleopatra's action
was nothing compared to his delight at that action itself, and even the
knowledge that he had read her character aright did not gratify him as
completely as the positive realisation that such characters as hers
sti