Norah found her way mechanically to the tea-table and made her fingers frantically busy in rearranging the parsley round the sandwich dish. On one side of her loomed the morose countenance of the Major, on the other she was conscious of the scared, miserable eyes of Vladimir. And above it all hung _that_. She dared not raise her eyes above the level of the tea-table, and she almost expected to see a spot of accusing vulpine blood drip down and stain the whiteness of the cloth. Her aunt’s manner signalled to her the repeated message to “be bright”; for the present she was fully occupied in keeping her teeth from chattering. “What did you shoot to-day?” asked Mrs. Hoopington suddenly of the unusually silent Vladimir. “Nothing—nothing worth speaking of,” said the boy. Norah’s heart, which had stood still for a space, made up for lost time with a most disturbing bound. “I wish you’d find something that was worth speaking about,” said the hostess; “every one seems to have lost their tongues.” “When did Smithers last see that fox?” said the Major. “Yesterday morning; a fine dog-fox, with a dark brush,” confided Mrs. Hoopington. “Aha, we’ll have a good gallop after that brush to-morrow,” said the Major, with a transient gleam of good humour. And then gloomy silence settled again round the tea-table, a silence broken only by despondent munchings and the occasional feverish rattle of a teaspoon in its saucer. A diversion was at last afforded by Mrs. Hoopington’s fox-terrier, which had jumped on to a vacant chair, the better to survey the delicacies of the table, and was now sniffing in an upward direction at something apparently more interesting than cold tea-cake. “What is exciting him?” asked his mistress, as the dog suddenly broke into short angry barks, with a running accompaniment of tremulous whines. “Why,” she continued, “it’s your game-bag, Vladimir! What _have_ you got in it?” “By Gad,” said the Major, who was now standing up; “there’s a pretty warm scent!” And then a simultaneous idea flashed on himself and Mrs. Hoopington. Their faces flushed to distinct but harmonious tones of purple, and with one accusing voice they screamed, “You’ve shot the fox!”