Nothing of this could her husband understand had she words to convey it. There was nothing he need understand except that his wife, meaning well, had meddled and regretted.
And now, turning in her saddle with a pretty gesture of her shoulders: "I meddle no more! Those who need me may come to me. Now laugh at my tardy wisdom, Kemp!"
"It's no laughing matter," he said, "if you're going to stand back and let this abandoned world spin itself madly to the bow-wows--"
"Don't be horrid. I repent. The mischief take Howard Quarrier!"
"Amen! Come on, Grace."
She gathered bridle. "Do you suppose Stephen Siward is going to make trouble?"
"How can he unless she helps him? Nonsense! All's well with Siward and Sylvia. Shall we gallop?"
All was very well with Siward and Sylvia. They had passed the rabbit-brier country scathless, with two black mallard, a jack-snipe, and a rabbit to the credit of their score, and were now advancing through that dimly lit enchanted land of tall grey alders where, in the sudden twilight of the leaves, woodcock after woodcock fluttered upward twittering, only to stop and drop, transformed at the vicious crack of Siward's gun to fluffy balls of feather whirling earthward from mid-air.
Sagamore came galloping back with a soft, unsoiled mass of chestnut and brown feathers in his mouth. Siward took the dead cock, passed it back to the keeper who followed them, patted the beautiful eager dog and signalled him forward once more.
"You should have fired that time," he said to Sylvia--"that is, if you care to kill anything."
"But I don't seem to be able to," she said. "It isn't a bit like shooting at clay targets. The twittering whirr takes me by surprise--it's all so charmingly sudden--and my heart seems to stop in one beat, and I look and look and then--whisk! the woodcock is gone, leaving me breathless--"
Her voice ceased; the white setter, cutting up his ground ahead, had stopped, rigid, one leg raised, jaws quivering and locking alternately.
"Isn't that a stunning picture!" said Siward in a low voice. "What a beauty he is--like a statue in white and blue-veined marble. You may talk, Miss Landis; woodcock don't flush at the sound of the human voice as grouse do."
"See his brown eyes roll back at us! He wonders why we don't do something!" whispered the girl. "Look, Mr. Siward! Now his head is moving--oh so gradually to the left!"
"The bird is moving on the ground," nodded Siward; "now the bird has stopped."
"I do wish I could see a woodcock on the ground," she breathed. "Do you think we might by any chance?"