and a snipe got up and jerked crookedly away on the wind.
The dog stood with one fore-paw lifted and the water dripping along his
belly. He waited for a crack and puff of smoke and the thud of a bird
falling into the water or the underwood. But his master did not fire; he
did not even see the flushing of the snipe; so the dog came up and
remonstrated with his eyes. Grimbal patted the beast's head, then rose
from his seat on the felled tree, stretched his arms, sat down again and
lighted his pipe.

The event of the morning had turned his thoughts in the old direction,
and now they were wholly occupied with Will Blanchard. Since his fit of
futile spleen and fury after the meeting with Phoebe, John had slowly
sunk back into the former nerveless attitude. From this an occasional
wonder roused him--a wonder as to whether the woman had ever given her
husband his message at all. His recent active hatred seemed a little
softened, though why it should be so he could not have explained. Now he
sometimes assured himself that he should not proceed to extremities, but
hang his sword over Will's head a while and possibly end by pardoning
him altogether.

Thus he paltered with his better part and presented a spectacle of one
mentally sick unto death by reason of shattered purpose. His unity of
design was gone. He had believed the last conversation with Phoebe in
itself sufficient to waken his pristine passion, but anger against
himself had been a great factor of that storm, apart from which
circumstance he made the mistake of supposing that his passion slept,
whereas in reality it was dead. Now, if Grimbal was to be stung into
activity, it must be along another line and upon a fresh count.

Then, as he reflected by the little tarns, there approached Will
Blanchard himself; and Grimbal, looking up, saw him standing among white
tussocks of dead grass by the water-side and rubbing the mud off his
boots upon them. For a moment his breath quickened, but he was not
surprised; and yet, before Will reached him, he had time to wonder at
himself that he was not.

Blanchard, calling at the Red House ten minutes after the master's
departure, had been informed by old Lawrence Vallack, John's factotum,
that he had come too late. It transpired, however, that Grimbal had
taken his gun and a dog, so Will, knowing the estate, made a guess at
the sportsman's destination, and was helped on his way when he came
within earshot of the barking spaniel.