"But inside the wood with the interesting appearance--what happened
then?" Gwen would not tolerate digression.

"Well, I came to the edge of a wall with a little sunk glade beyond, and
was looking across some blackberry bushes when I heard a rifle-shot, and
the whirr of a bullet. I had just time to notice that the whirr came
_with_ the gunshot--if it had been in the opposite direction it would
have followed it--when I was struck on the head and fell. It was the
fall that knocked me insensible, but it was the gunshot that was
responsible for all that bleeding.... Do you know, I can't tell you how
sorry I am for that old boy that fired the shot? I can't imagine
anything more miserable than shooting a man by accident."

It was then that an uneasy feeling about those eyes, that looked so
clear and might be so deceiving, took hold of Gwen's mind, and would not
be ignored on any terms. The speaker's "you"--was it addressed in this
case to her or to her mother? The line of his vision seemed to pass
between them. If he could see at all, ever so dimly, he could look
towards the person he addressed. One does not always do so; true enough!
But one does not stare to right or to left of him. And she felt sure
these words had been spoken to herself.

So while her mother was joining in commiseration of old Stephen, towards
whom she herself felt rather brutal, she was casting about for some
means of coming at the truth. Irene was no good, however altruistic her
motives might be for story-telling.... No!--his eyes looked at her in
quite another fashion that evening at Arthur's Bridge, in the light of
the sunset. She _must_ get at the truth, come what might!

She left her mother to express sympathy for old Stephen, remaining
rather obdurately silent; checking a wish to say that it served the old
man right for meddling with loaded guns. She waited for the subject to
die down, and then recurred to its predecessor. Did Mr. Torrens walk
straight from Arthur's Bridge to the Thurrock or go roundabout? She did
not really want to know--merely wanted to get him to talk about himself
again. He might say something about his sight, by accident.

He replied:--"I did not go absolutely straight. I went first to where a
couple of stones--a respectable married couple, I should say--were
standing close together in the fern, with big initials cut on them.
Their own, I presume." Gwen said she knew them; they were parish
boundaries. "Well--probably tha