Dorothy looked particularly attractive that Sunday in her coat and skirt of lavender box-cloth, for the fashion of the moment was one that well showed off a figure like hers. The rector's sermon on a text from the Song of Solomon alluded with voluptuous imagery to the romance of the married state, and, being entirely unintelligible to the congregation, was considered round the parishes to be one of the best sermons he had ever preached. If only to-morrow, thought Dorothy, when she walked out of the churchyard through a crowd of uncovered rustics, she could leave the hunting-field as triumphantly. Her rides on the preceding days with Clarehaven and the girls had been successful. They had all congratulated her, and any lingering anxiety in her husband's mind seemed to have passed away. As the moment drew near, however, Dorothy began to be nervous about breaches of hunting etiquette, and she spent Sunday afternoon in turning over the pages of bound volumes of _Punch_ in order to extract from the weekly hunting joke hints what not to do. A succession of irate M. F. H.'s, purple in the face and shaking crops at presumptuous cockneys, haunted her dreams that night; when she woke to a moist gray morning, for the first time in her life she felt really nervous. It was in vain that she sought to reassure herself by recalling past triumphs on the stage or by telling herself how easily she had dealt with Lady Chatfield. Failure in either of those cases would not have been irremediable; but let her make no mistake, before to-day's dusk she should have settled the whole of her future life. If she made a fool of herself she should never escape from being pointed out as a Vanity girl; if she succeeded, the Vanity girl would be forgotten, and by sheer personal prowess she might lead the county. It was a tribute to Dorothy's complexion that not even on this rather shaky morning did she feel the need for rouge. Five Tree Farm was only three miles from Clare Court, and the meets there, being considered the best of the season, always had very large fields. She was disappointed that Tony was not in pink, but he told her he did not care enough about hunting to dress up for it. "That's what I like about shooting," he said, "there isn't all this confounded putting it on." The master cantered up and congratulated Dorothy on her first appearance with the Horley Hunt. "We're going to draw Dedenham Copse first," he informed her, and cantered off again, shouting loudly to two unfortunate young men with bicycles who were doing no harm at all, but whom he persisted in abusing as "damned socialists." Suddenly, hounds gave tongue with changed, almost intolerable eager note; there was a thud of hoofs all round her; confused cries; the sound of a horn shrilling to the gray sky....