"I thought you were on your way to shoot, Mr. Raeburn?"
"So I was, but there is no hurry; if I can be useful. Both the birds and the keeper can wait."
"Where are you going?"
"To some outlying fields of ours on the Windmill Hill. There is a tenant there who wants to see me. He is a prosy person with a host of grievances. I took my gun as a possible means of escape from him."
"Windmill Hill? I know the name. Oh! I remember: it was there—my father has just been telling me—that your father and he shot the pair of kestrels, when they were boys together."
Her tone was quite light, but somehow it had an accent, an emphasis, which made Aldous Raeburn supremely uncomfortable. In his disquiet, he thought of various things to say; but he was not ready, nor naturally effusive; the turn of them did not please him; and he remained silent.
Meantime Marcella's heart was beating fast. She was meditating a coup.
"Mr. Raeburn!"
"Yes!"
"Will you think me a very extraordinary person if I ask you a question? Your father and mine were great friends, weren't they, as boys?—your family and mine were friends, altogether?"