She smiled at him as she spoke, and gave his hand a coaxing squeeze. This had the effect of banishing the mutinous look from his face. He smiled back at her, a brilliant light in his eyes, and raised her hand to his lips, holding it in an uncomfortably strong grip, and said: “To please you, coz, anything!”

“I’m much obliged to you, Torquil,” she said, in a prosaic voice, and disengaging herself, “but there’s no need for these heroics! You should rather please your mama, who is being kept waiting for her dinner!”

He flushed, and for a moment looked as if he would fly into a miff; but after biting his lip, he cast her a sidelong glance, and burst out laughing. He was still giggling when they reached the dining-room, in a childish way which Kate found exasperating, but he stopped when Lady Broome spoke to Kate, asking her if she had seen how well the roses had stood up against the storm, and said suddenly: “I’m hungry! What’s in that tureen, Mama?”

“Calves’ feet and asparagus,” she replied.

“Oh, good! I like that!” he said.

Since it was seldom that he took any interest in what he ate, Kate was mildly surprised, and still more surprised when instead of eating a few mouthfuls, pushing the rest about on his plate, and complaining that it was unfit to eat, he ate his portion with avidity, and demanded some of the beef which Dr Delabole was carving. Kate, who was finding it difficult to swallow, and could only by the exercise of will-power subdue her nausea, was obliged to avert her eyes from the blood oozing from the sirloin; but Torquil pronounced it to be roasted to a turn, and—rather greedily, she thought—applied himself to it with zest.

“Your long sleep has given you an appetite!” said the doctor playfully.

“Did I sleep for a long time? I don’t remember.”

“Indeed you did! Badger was hard put to it to rouse you!”

“Oh, I remember thatl I woke up to find him shaking me, and very nearly came to cuffs with him for interrupting my dream!”

“What were you dreaming about?” asked Kate. “It must have been something very agreeable! I find that whenever I have a very vivid dream I am only too thankful to wake up from it!”

“I don’t know! The devil of it is that it slipped away! But I do know it was agreeable!” There was a general laugh, which made him look round challengingly, a spark of anger in his eyes.

“How can you know that, if it slipped away from you, my son?” asked his mother.

He considered this, and then laughed reluctantly. “Oh, it does seem absurd, doesn’t it? But I do know, though I can’t tell how, Kate! You understand, don’t you?”

“Perfectly!” she assured him. “I don’t even remember my bad dreams, but I know when I’ve had one!”

“Do you have bad dreams?” he said, turning his head to look searchingly at her.

“Uncomfortable ones, now and then,” she acknowledged.

“But not shocking nightmares? Things which haunt you—make you wake in a sweat of terror?”

“No, thank God! Only very occasionally!”

“I do,” he said earnestly. “Sometimes I dream that I’m running from a terrible monster. Running, running, with weights on my feet!—It hasn’t caught me yet, but I think that one day it will. And sometimes I dream that I’ve done something dreadful, and that’s—”

“For heaven’s sake, stop, Torquil!” exclaimed Lady Broome. “You are making my blood run cold!” She gave an exaggerated shudder, and added, in a tone of affectionate chiding:

“Detestable boy! Next you will be telling us ghost stories, and we shall none of us dare to go upstairs to bed! You know, Kate, a ghost is the one thing we lack at Staplewood! It was a sad disappointment to me when Sir Timothy brought me here as a bride, for in those days I was a romantic; but I understand that the owners of haunted houses find it impossible to induce their servants to remain with them, so I’ve learnt to be thankful that no ghost wanders about Staplewood, and no invisible coach drives up to our door in the middle of the night, as a warning that the head of the house is about to die!”

“Yes, indeed, my lady, and so you may be!” said the doctor. “That puts me in mind of a strange occurrence which befell me many years ago, when I was sojourning in Derbyshire.”

Torquil muttered: “O God!” but Lady Broome invited the doctor to continue, and cast a quelling look at her son, which made him give a smothered giggle.

By the time the doctor had come to the end of his anecdote, the second course had been set on the table, and Torquil was pressing Kate, in dumb show, to eat a cheesecake. She shook her head, whereupon he exclaimed, interrupting the doctor, that she must be ill, since she had eaten almost nothing; and she said in a hurry that she would have a little of the jelly. “But are you ill?” he asked anxiously.

“No, no! Just—just not hungry!” she assured him, touched by his solicitude.

He smiled engagingly upon her. “Oh, I’m so happy to hear you say so! I was afraid you meant to cry off from our game!” he said ingenuously.

She choked, but managed to gasp: “Not at all!”

Lady Broome came to her rescue, reproving Torquil for breaking in so rudely on the doctor’s story. “And let me tell you, my son, that to draw attention to Kate’s loss of appetite is even more uncivil! She is feeling the heat, as I am myself—but I notice you don’t remark on my loss of appetite! Dear child, if you have finished, shall we go upstairs?”

Kate had not finished, but she thankfully abandoned the jelly, and followed her ladyship from the room. On their way up the Grand Stairway, Lady Broome said: “Dr Delabole informs me that you had an unpleasant experience this afternoon, in the wood. Very disagreeable, and it is no wonder that it made you feel squeamish, but it doesn’t do to refine too much upon such things, my love. People who live in the country are for ever killing something! There is really very little difference between the unlettered yokel who sets snares for rabbits, and the gentleman who shoots pheasants, except that one is a poacher, of course. I must tell the head-keeper to be on the watch.”

Kate returned no answer. She could only suppose that Dr Delabole had not revealed the gruesome details to her aunt; and, recalling his advice to her not to mention the episode, she thought that this was very probable: Lady Broome could scarcely have dismissed the matter so coolly had she known the full sum of it, nor could she have expected Kate to banish it from her mind. But when they reached the Long Drawing—room again, she recommended Kate to prosecute a search for the missing fox and geese, saying, with an expressive smile: “We shall have no peace unless they are found! The game might quite as well be played with draughts, but you know what Torquil is, once he takes an idea into his head!”

Fortunately, Kate discovered the pieces in a box at the back of the cabinet; and by the time Torquil and Dr Delabole came into the room, she had set the board out on a small table, and was arranging the geese on it. Torquil cried delightedly: “Oh, you’ve found them! Capital! But that’s not the way to set them out, coz! I’ll show you!”

She was very willing to learn the game, but had it not been for Dr Delabole, who drew up a chair at her elbow, and quietly instructed her, she must have been hopelessly bewildered by Torquil’s exposition. The rules of the game were simple, but the play called for some skill. Having been beaten twice, in the least possible number of moves, she began to master the tactics, and was soon forcing Torquil to exercise his considerable ingenuity to win. When the tea-tray was brought in, and Lady Broome called a halt, she would have put the pieces away, but Torquil begged for just one more game, and she readily agreed—subject to Lady Broome’s approval. It was the gayest evening of any she had yet spent at Staplewood.

Lady Broome said: “Very well, but come and drink your tea first, both of you! I am persuaded that you at least must be in need of it, Kate! Such squeaks of dismay as you’ve been uttering, and such crows of triumph!”

“Oh, I do beg your pardon, ma’am. Have ,we been very noisy?” Kate said penitently. “It is the most ridiculous game, but excessively exciting! When I find the fox about to pounce on one of my geese, I can’t help but squeak! But as for crowing, that was Torquil, and very unhandsome it was of him! I had no occasion to crow!”

“Oh, what a bouncer!” mocked Torquil. “You cornered me once, and if that wasn’t a crow that you gave I never heard one!”

“Well, it’s my turn to be the fox this time,” said Kate merrily. “And your turn to squeak! See if I don’t snap up your geese!”

The final game was prolonged; Torquil won it, and said virtuously: “Observe that I’m not crowing, coz!”

She laughed. “That’s worse! Gracious, how exhausted I am!”

Dr Delabole took her wrist, and shook his head solemnly: “A tumultuous pulse!” he pronounced. “I shall prescribe warm tar-water—excellent for a fever!”

“Ugh!” shuddered Kate. “It sounds horrid!”

“All medicines are horrid!” stated Torquil.

“Very true,” agreed Lady Broome, casting a cloth over her embroidery frame, and rising to her feet. “However, I hardly think we shall have to dose Kate with tar-water, or anything else! My dear, if you are ready, shall we go up to bed? It is growing late.”

“Of course I am ready, ma’am! I wish I may not have been keeping you up: you should have told us to stop playing! Goodnight, sir—goodnight, cousin! If you hear a shriek in the night, you will know that I have had your nightmare, and have wakened just as I was about to be caught!”

She waved her hand to him, and went away with Lady Broome. She said, halfway along the gallery: “How well Torquil looks tonight! I shouldn’t wonder at it if that long, natural sleep did him all the good in the world. He had an appetite, too. Do you know, ma’am, it’s the first time since I came here that he has wanted his dinner? What a pity it is that he suffers so often from insomnia, and has to be given composers! Surely they must be very bad for him? I mean,” she added, remembering the snubs she had received, “that it is a pity he can’t sleep without them!”