is incompetent to compensate the prisoner or offer any
compromise."

"Why, Mr. Siward?"

"Because the court herself is already compromised in her future
engagements."

"But what has my--engagement to do with--"

"You offered compensation for depriving me of my shooting. There could
be only one adequate compensation."

"And that?" she asked, coolly enough.

"Your continual companionship."

"But you have it, Mr. Siward--"

"I have it for a day. The season lasts three months you know."

"And you and I are to play a continuous vaudeville for three months? Is
that your offer?"

"Partly."

"Then one day with me is not worth those many days of murder?" she asked
in pretended astonishment.

"Ask yourself why those many days would be doubly empty," he said so
seriously that the pointless game began to confuse her.

"Then"--she turned lightly from uncertain ground--"then perhaps we had
better be about that matter of the cup you prize so highly. Are you
ready, Mr. Siward? There is much to be killed yet--including time, you
know."

But the hinted sweetness of the challenge had aroused him, and he made
no motion to rise. Nor did she.

"I am not sure," he reflected, "just exactly what I should ask of you if
you insist on taking away--" he turned and looked about him through the
burnt gold foliage, "--if you took away all this out of my life."

"I shall not take it; because I have nothing in exchange to offer ... you
say," she answered imprudently.

"I did not say so," he retorted.

"You did--reminding me that the court is already engaged for a
continuous performance."

"Was it necessary to remind you?" he asked with deliberate malice.

She flushed up, vexed, silent, then looked directly at him with
beautiful hostile eyes. "What do you mean, Mr. Siward? Are you taking
our harmless, idle badinage as warrant for an intimacy unwarranted?"

"Have I offended?" he asked, so impassively that a flash of resentment
brought her to her feet, angry and self-possessed.

"How far have we to go?" she asked quietly.

He rose to his feet, turned, hailing the keeper, repeating the question.
And at the answer they both started forward, the dog ranging ahead
through a dense growth of beech and chestnut, over a high brown ridge,
then down, always down along a leafy ravine to the water's edge--a
forest pond set in the gorgeous foliage of ripening maples.

"I don't see," said Sylvia impatiently, "how we are going to obey
in