"Jane has begged me not to. I am going to sleep with her," she
answered.




CHAPTER IV

"BY THE HAND OF GOD"


Sir Walter always remembered that Sunday luncheon and declared that
it reminded him of a very painful experience in his early life.
When big-game shooting in South Africa, he had once been tossed by
a wounded buffalo bull. By good chance the creature threw him into
a gully some feet lower than the surrounding bush. Thus it lost
him, and he was safe from destruction. There, however, he remained
with a broken leg for some hours until rescued; and during that
time the mosquitoes caused him unspeakable torments.

To-day the terrible disaster of the morning became temporarily
overshadowed by the necessity of enduring his friends' comments
upon it. The worst phase of the ordeal was their pity. Sir Walter
had never been pitied in his life, and detested the experience.
This stream of sympathy and the chastened voices much oppressed him.
He was angry with himself also, for a guilty conviction that, in
truth, the interest of the visitors exceeded their grief. He felt
it base to suspect them of any such thing; but the buzz of their
polite expressions, combined with their cautious questions and