"I'm frightfully sorry, old man," said Mark, coming up; "it was careless of me, but I felt sure there was no one back there. I saw that rabbit and stalked it, meaning to overtake you all afterwards. They walk so fearfully slow, you know, what with all these ladies, and Uncle Douglas not feeling very fit. And Miss Byrne here, too! By Jove, I _am_ sorry! Beastly stupid of me." He was plainly agitated, and could hardly blame himself severely enough. And David, for his part, was not disposed to make light of what had happened. Perhaps he was glad of a subject on which he could enlarge. "It was a rotten shot, too," he mumbled, as they all hurried on after the others. "You were about four yards behind that rabbit." "Absolutely rotten," agreed Mark. "I don't know what's happened to my shooting. I've hit every bird in the tail to-day, except when I've missed 'em clean, and that's what I've done most of the time. There's something wrong with my eye altogether. If I don't get better, I shall knock off shooting--for a few days, anyhow." All his usual self-possession seemed to have been shaken out of him by the thought of the catastrophe he might have caused. Young, good-looking and popular, he was accustomed to take the pleasure shown in his society and the admiring approval of his associates, which had always contributed so much to his comfortable feeling of satisfaction with himself, and which had invariably strengthened his reluctance to harbour unpleasant doubts as to his own perfections, as a matter of course; and the heartiness with which he now cursed himself for a careless and dangerous fool testified to the fright he had had. Even when David, relenting a little, though still reluctant to show it, grunted surlily, "None of you cavalry soldiers are safe with a gun." Mark did not, as he would generally have done, deny the accusation resentfully, but displayed an astonishing meekness, which proved how clearly he saw himself to be in the wrong. Juliet, who had sometimes thought him rather selfish--a fault he shared with many others of his kind, and one perhaps almost unavoidable in attractive only sons--was touched by his unusual humility, and treated the matter lightly, doing all she could to cheer him up and restore to him his good opinion of himself. But Mark, while he smiled back gratefully in reply, would not allow her to persuade him that he was less to blame than he asserted, and he was still lamenting his carelessness when they came up with the rest of the party, who were already stationed in the butts. Miss Tarver was beside Lord Ashiel, and Mark stopped a minute to relate how nearly he had been the cause of an accident, although both David and Juliet, by mutual consent, guessed what he was going to do, and tried to dissuade him. "No need to say anything about it," David mumbled in his ear. "No, no, don't, please," Juliet murmured in the other.