So I set off in spite of her, feeling valiant and glad to be
so easily brave, but a little sorry that she should think herself
crossed by me.

A thin cloud veiled the moon, and the way under the beeches was
dark and indistinct. I was not so preoccupied with my love-affairs
as to neglect what I will confess was always my custom at night
across that wild and lonely park. I made myself a club by fastening
a big flint to one end of my twisted handkerchief and tying the
other about my wrist, and with this in my pocket, went on comforted.

And it chanced that as I emerged from the hollies by the corner
of the shrubbery I was startled to come unexpectedly upon a young
man in evening dress smoking a cigar.

I was walking on turf, so that the sound I made was slight. He
stood clear in the moonlight, his cigar glowed like a blood-red
star, and it did not occur to me at the time that I advanced towards
him almost invisibly in an impenetrable shadow.

"Hullo," he cried, with a sort of amiable challenge. "I'm here
first!"

I came out into the light. "Who cares if you are?" said I.

I had jumped at once to an interpretation of his words. I knew that
there was an intermittent dispute between the House people and the
villager public about the use of this track, and it is needless to
say where my sympathies fell in that dispute.