But cruel Destiny said No!--he was not to round off his long night's rest with a neat peroration. He was interrupted in the middle of it by what seemed, in his dream-world, just reached, the loud crack of a bone that disintegrated under pressure; but that when he woke was clearly a stone flung at his window. What a capital instance of dream-celerity, thought he! Fancy the first half of that sound having conjured up the operating-theatre at University College Hospital, fifteen years ago, and a room full of intent faces he knew well, and enough of the second half being available for him to identify it as--probably--the _poltergeist_ that infested that part of the house. Perhaps, if he took no notice, the _poltergeist_ would be discouraged and subside. Anyhow, he wouldn't encourage it. But the sound came again, and the voice surely of Gwendolen, his very great friend, with panic in it, and breathlessness as of a voice-reft runner. He was out of bed in twenty, dressing-gowned in forty, at the window in fifty, seconds. Not a minute lost! "What's all that?... A man shot! All right, I'll come." "Oh, do! It's so dreadful. Stephen Solmes shot him by mistake for a dog ... at least, I'll tell you directly." "All right. I'll come now." And in less than half an hour the speaker is kneeling by the body on the grass; and those who found it, with others who have gathered round even in this solitude, are waiting for the first authoritative word of possible hope. Not despair, with a look like that on the face of a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. "There is a little blood coming still. Wait till I have stopped it and I'll tell you." He stops it somehow with the aid of a miraculous little morocco affair, scarcely bigger than a card-case. He never leaves home without it. Then he looks up at the anxious, beautiful face of the girl who stoops close by, holding a dog back. "He is not dead," says he. "That is all I can say. He must be moved as little as possible, but got to a bed--somewhere. Is that his dog?" "Yes. This is Achilles." "How do you know it is Achilles?" "I'll tell you directly. _He_ told me his name yesterday." She nods towards the motionless figure on the turf. It is not a corpse yet; that is all that can be said, so far. CHAPTER XI THE HON. PERCIVAL PELLEW AND MISS CONSTANCE SMITH-DICKENSON, WHOSE BLOOM HAD GONE OFF. OLD MAIDS WERE TWENTY-EIGHT, THENADAYS. HOW THE TRAGEDY CAME OUT, AND MR. PELLEW TALKED IT OVER WITH MISS SMITH-DICKENSON, ALTHOUGH HER BLOOM REMAINED OFF. WHO THE SHOT MAN WAS. OF MR. PELLEW's CAUTION, AND A DARK GREEN FRITILLARY. WHAT YOU CAN DO AND CAN'T DO, WHEN YOU ARE A LADY AND GENTLEMAN