Before the young lady could quit the room, however, her sister appeared; and the only moment they obtained for private conference was at the door of the carriage, after Edith had got in, and while her father was giving some directions to the coachman. No great information could be given or received, indeed, for Sir Robert returned to the side of the vehicle immediately, bade his daughter good-bye, and the carriage rolled away. As soon as it was gone, Sir Edward Digby proposed, with the permission of Sir Robert Croyland, to go out to shoot; for he did not wish to subject himself to any further cross-examination by the ladies of the family, and he read many inquiries in fair Zara's eyes, which he feared might be difficult to answer. Retiring, then, to put on a more fitting costume, while gamekeepers and dogs were summoned to attend him, he took the opportunity of writing a short letter, which he delivered to his servant to post, giving him, at the same time, brief directions to meet him near the cottage of good Mrs. Clare, about half-past two, with the sword which the young officer usually wore when not on military service. Those orders were spoken in so ordinary and commonplace a tone that none but a very shrewd fellow would have discovered that anything was going forward different from the usual occurrences of the day; but Somers was a very shrewd fellow; and in a few minutes--judging from what he had observed while waiting on his master during dinner on the preceding day--he settled the whole matter entirely to his own satisfaction, thinking, according to the phraseology of those times, "Sir Edward will pink him--and a good thing too; but it will spoil sport here, I've a notion." As he descended to the hall, in order to join the keepers and their four-footed coadjutors, the young baronet encountered Mrs. Barbara and her niece; and he perceived Zara's eyes instantly glance to his sword-belt, from which he had taken care to remove a weapon that could only be inconvenient to him in the sport he was about to pursue. She was not so easily to be deceived as her father; but yet the absence of the weapon usually employed in those days, as the most efficacious for killing a fellow-creature, put her mind at ease, at least for the present; and, although she determined to watch the proceedings of the young baronet during the two or three following days--as far, at least, as propriety would permit--she took no further notice at the moment, being very anxious to prevent her good aunt from interfering more than necessary in the affairs of Sir Edward Digby.