'I hope you have killed a
lot of things,' said Miss Boncassen.
'Pretty well, among us all.'
'What an odd amusement it seems, going out to commit wholesale
slaughter. However it is the proper thing no doubt.'
'Quite the proper thing,' said Lord Silverbridge, and that was
all.
On the next morning he dressed himself for shooting,--and then sent
out the party without him. He had heard, he said, of a young horse
for sale in the neighbourhood, and had sent to desire that it
might be brought to him. And now he found his occasion.
'Come and play a game of billiards,' he said to Isabel, as the
three girls with the other ladies were together in the drawing-
room. She got up very slowly from her seat, and very slowly crept
away to the door. Then she looked round as though expecting the
others to follow her. None of them did follow her. Mary felt that
she ought to do so; but, knowing all that she knew, did not dare.
And what good could she have done by one such interruption? Lady
Mabel would fain have gone too;--but neither did she quite dare.
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