I suppose you're Nasmyth's Canadian friend?" she began, and went on
without waiting for an answer: "As we occupy adjoining butts on the next
drive, you may take my gun. Teddy has deserted me."

"Teddy?" queried Lisle, who wondered if she were referring to her
brother. "I thought his name was Jim."

"It's Marple's stout friend with the dyed hair I mean. I told him what
would happen if he ate as he persisted in doing at lunch. It's too hot to
gormandize; I wasn't astonished when he collapsed at the steep place on
the last walk. Reflecting that it was his own fault, I left him."

Lisle was not charmed with the girl's manners, but he could not check a
smile.

"Are you tired? You oughtn't to be," she continued with another bold
glance at him.

"No," he replied; "if it's any consolation to you, I'm far from exhausted
yet."

"That's reassuring," she retorted. "You haven't taken my gun."

Having forgotten it for the moment, he flushed a little, and she watched
him with unconcealed amusement while he opened the weapon and took out
the cartridges.

"What's that for?" she asked impertinently. "It's hammerless; there's
nothing to catch."

"The pull-off's probably very light, if it's been made for a lady's use.
It's sometimes possible to jar the strikers down when they set the
springs to yield at a touch."

"Then you know something about guns?" she said, as if she had not
expected this.

"Not a great deal about the scatter kind, though I've stripped a few."

"We never do that," she informed him. "We send them to London. Still,
you're right; the gun did go off when I knocked it jumping down from a
wall."

"If you'll let me have it to-night, I'll alter that. I understand we're
going out again to-morrow."

She considered a moment.

"Well," she consented, with the air of one conferring a favor, "you may
take it when we've finished."

Lisle wondered what had prompted him to make the offer. The way she had
addressed him was not ingratiating, but he delighted in examining any
fine mechanism and he had never handled such a beautifully made weapon.

They plodded on side by side through the heather, which was long and
matted, and presently, seeing that she was breathless, he stopped on the
crest of a higher rise and once more looked about with keen appreciation.

In front of him the crimson and purple heath was rent and fissured, and
in the deep gaps washed out by heavy rains the peat gleamed a warm
chocolate-brown. El