At this juncture I slipped out of the room to put on my hat and see if I could shake off some of the unholy influence this woman shed around her, in the open air. As I passed through the garden and quietly unlatched the gate, a figure started up from the shadow of the wall as if to join me. It was Mr. Charteris. ‘May I walk a little way with you, Hilda, and smoke my cigar in your company?’ he asked. ‘No, thank you,’ I replied abruptly.’ I would rather not.’ ‘Yet you spent two or three hours in Mr. Sandilands’ society yesterday,’ he said, with a reproachful air. ‘I know I did; but I had not seen him for some time, and we had much to talk of. To-night I would rather be alone.’ ‘As you will. I have no desire to intrude my company upon you. _Bon voyage!_’ I saw he was offended, but I could not help it. The conversation we had held that morning was too fresh in both our minds. He would have renewed the subject, which, as far as I was concerned, was exhausted. I had nothing more to say about it, and I feared lest in discussion I might be led to betray my past regard for him. Besides, although I wished him no harm, I did not consider that Mr. Charteris’s behaviour to me entitled him to rank as one of my friends. He had proved himself false, fickle, and cold-hearted. No man can have worse attributes for any position in life. He was not worthy of any woman’s confidence or regard, and I was quite sure he could never have more from me than my acquaintance. It was a luscious, balmy evening, with just sufficient coolness to make walking a pleasure. To leave the clang of that woman’s tongue behind me, and to encounter the soft stilly atmosphere, was like entering a church from a public-house. I breathed more freely as I found myself alone, at liberty to think without disturbance. It was but just six o’clock. The shadows had not yet fallen to blot out the beautiful, delicate hues of the wild-flowers that bordered the roadway; nor to hush the evening hymns of the birds that were singing from every bough. I would not take my favourite walk, which led towards the Château des Roses, because I was alone, and a silly fear of ridicule from Tessie and her sister always made me avoid anything that looked like a desire to meet the Baron de Nesselrode. So, as soon as the house I had quitted was out of sight, I struck up a side-path which led in the opposite direction and towards the forest of Piron. This forest, which has been rendered so celebrated by poets and writers of romance, is still the great point to which the eyes of all sportsmen in the Wallon are lovingly directed, although the march of civilisation has here, as everywhere else, driven the larger game farther and farther back into the recesses of their covert, until it is now as difficult to find them as it was once to extirpate them.