Our story is not of these, but of two men who strolled down this path on an evening no farther back than last August. They seemed, outwardly at least, ill-matched. The one, a young fellow under thirty, fair-haired, pink-cheeked, prim-looking, was of middle size. He was dressed as a clergyman, but more neatly and trimly than the average country clergyman dresses. The other was one of the tallest and thinnest men ever seen outside a show--a man whose very clothes, his worn jacket and shrunken knickerbockers, had the air of sharing his attenuation. He looked like a gamekeeper, and was, in fact, the squire's son-in-law, Jim Foley. "I really cannot make you out," he said, as the two sighted the house; and, shifting his gun to the other shoulder, he took occasion to glance at his companion. "What do you do, old boy? You never kill anything, unless it is a trout now and then. Now I could not live without killing. Must kill something every day!" "And do you?" "Seldom miss," the long man rejoined cheerfully, "except on a hunting day when we draw blank. Rats, rabbits, otters, pike, sometimes a hawk, sometimes, as to-day, a brace of wood-pigeons. And game and foxes in their season. Must kill something, my boy." His companion glanced at him, looked away again, and sighed. "Well, what is that for?" Foley asked, in the tone of an aggrieved man. "I was only thinking," the other replied drily, "what a lucky fellow you were to have nothing to do but kill." The tall man whistled. "I say," he said, "for a man who is to be married in a week or so, you are in roaring spirits, ain't you? I tell you what it is, my boy; you do not take very kindly to your bliss. I can see Patty flitting about in the garden like a big white moth, waiting, I have no doubt, for a word with her lord; and your step lags, and your face is grave, and you try to be cynical! What is up?" The younger man laughed, but not merrily; and there was a tinge of sullenness in his tone as he answered, "Nothing! A man cannot always be grinning." "No; but _pâti de foie gras_ is not a man's ordinary meat," Jim retorted imperturbably. "Jones!" "Well?" the other said snappishly. "You are in a mess, my boy--that is my opinion! Now, don't take it amiss," Jim continued drily. "I am within my rights. I am one of the family, and if the squire is blind and Patty is young, I am neither. And I am not going to let this go on until I know more, my boy. You have something on your mind of which they are ignorant." The young clergyman turned his face to his companion, and Jim Foley, albeit of the coolest, was taken aback by the change which anger or some other emotion had wrought in it. Even the clergyman's voice was altered. "And what if I have?" he said, stopping so suddenly that the two confronted one another. "What if I have, Mr. Foley?"