Before I could say a word, the gentleman addressed me.
“May I ask, sir, if I have given you permission to shoot over my preserves?”
“I beg to express my great regret, sir,” I replied, as I lifted my hat in acknowledgment of the lady’s presence, “that I should have trespassed upon your land. I can only plead, as my excuse, that I fully believed I was still upon the manor belonging to The Shallows.”
“Gentlemen who go out shooting ought to know the limits of their estates,” he answered harshly; “the boundaries of The Shallows are well defined, nor is the area they contain so very extensive. You have no right upon this side the stream, sir; oblige me by returning.”
I merely bowed, for I was nettled by his tone, and as I turned away I noticed that the young lady whispered to him.
“One moment, sir,” he said, “my daughter suggests the possibility of your being the new owner of The Shallows. May I ask if this is so?”
It had not occurred to me before, but I understood in a moment to whom I had been speaking, and I replied:
“Yes, Mr. Maryon—my name is Westcar.”
Such was my introduction to Mr. and Miss Maryon. The proprietor of The Mere appeared to be a gentleman, but his manners were cold and reserved, and a careful observer might have remarked a perpetual restlessness in the eyes, as if they were physically incapable of regarding the same object for more than a moment. He was about sixty years of age, apparently; and though he now and again made an effort to carry himself upright, the head and shoulders soon drooped again, as if the weight of years, and, it might be, the memory of the past, were a heavy load to carry. Of Miss Maryon it is sufficient to say that she was nineteen or twenty, and it did not need a second glance to satisfy me that her beauty was of no ordinary kind.
I must hurry over the records of the next few weeks. I became a frequent visitor at The Mere. Mr. Maryon’s manner never became cordial, but he did not seem displeased to see me; and as to Agnes,—well, she certainly was not displeased either.