"I shall tell you nothing. After the tone which you have used towards me I decline to allow you to ask me questions." He got off the arm of the chair. "Then God help her." He went to the door. At the door he turned again. "I don't believe that He will suffer it." Then he went If Archie went on like that much longer, he and I should quarrel. Vicarious morality is a variety of the article to which the most liberal-minded inevitably objects. CHAPTER XX. THE NEWS FROM TOWN. I woke up feeling as fresh as a daisy. When Burton drew up the blinds the sun came gleaming through the bedroom windows. "There's been a slight frost, sir, but I think it's going to be a clear day." From where I lay in bed the sky looked cloudless. "It seems just the morning for a shoot." "I think it is a shooting day, sir--there's no wind, and a good light." As Burton said, it was a shooting day. When I had dressed I went straight down on to the terrace. There was a slight nip in the air, and the faintest whisper of a breeze. It was the sort of day which makes one feel that it is good to be alive. I seemed to be the first one down. I never felt more fit. I stood there drinking in great draughts of the clear, cool air, with greater relish than I ever drank champagne. If one always lived in such an atmosphere, with plenty of money in one's pockets, one could afford to be a model of all the virtues. Some one spoke to me from behind. It was Dora. "You are the first on the scene." I turned. She was standing at the open window of the morning-room. "Am I the first to whom you have wished good morning?" "The very first. Good morning, Mr. Townsend." She held out to me her hand. I retained it in mine. A wild impulse seized me to kiss her on the lips. It was all I could do to hold my own against it. Her eyes were so provoking, her mouth so tempting. She allowed me to keep her hand in mine, though she might surely have seen my desire showing through my face. And I have no doubt she did, for she smiled at me. "Well--good luck." "I will keep my promise." I released her hand. A gleam of colour was glowing on her cheeks. I doubted if she was not making fun of me. "After all, papa cannot come. He wishes you to shoot without him. He says that he will certainly be down tonight." We shot without him. I do not think that he was missed. I had never seen Sir Haselton Jardine handling a gun, but I should not fancy that he was much of a performer. He did not strike one as being built that way. I spoke to Innes as we were strolling to cover. "Innes, I'm feeling in first-rate shooting trim to-day. I don't pretend, for a moment, to compare my shooting to yours, but would you like to have a sporting wager?" "How?" One peculiarity of Innes's is that he never uses two syllables where one will do. "Bet you a pony that I kill more birds than you." "Birds? or all in?" "All in if you like." "Done."