Page:The Duke Decides (1904).djvu/187

 Tarrant, he had lunched as a member of Sir Claude’s shooting-party ten years ago. The place was graven on his memory, because the day was a red-letter one by reason of his having shot his first pheasant thereon.

Without any definite plan in his head, but actuated by a longing for human companionship, however brief, he went up to the door of the cottage and knocked, his arrival being also heralded by the barking of dogs at the side of the house. The door was almost immediately thrown open by a stalwart, ruddy-faced man of sixty, who carried a candle and stared in open-mouthed wonder at a well-dressed visitor at such an hour and place. Beaumanoir looked at him closely, and smiled his first smile of pleasure since Forsyth’s hand had gripped his on the day he landed.

“I can see you’ve forgotten me, Mayne,” he said, “though I should have known you anywhere—time has touched you so slightly. Don’t you recollect young Charley Hanbury, who came over with the Duke of Beaumanoir to a big shoot with Sir Claude in ’91?”

A gleam shone in the honest keeper’s keen eyes. “Of course I remember, sir,” he replied, adding quickly: “Begging your Grace’s