There's some, very fair, to be got here on reasonable terms, I've just heard.' 'But you need not hire any!' spoke up Charlotte.

'Paula would let you shoot anything, I am sure.

She has not been here long enough to preserve much game, and the poachers had it all in Mr.Wilkins' time.

But what there is you might kill with pleasure to her.' 'No, thank you,' said De Stancy grimly.

'I prefer to remain a stranger to Miss Power--Miss Steam-Power, she ought to be called--and to all her possessions.' Charlotte was subdued, and did not insist further; while Somerset, before he could feel himself able to decide on the mood in which the gallant captain's joke at Paula's expense should be taken, wondered whether it were a married man or a bachelor who uttered it.
He had not been able to keep the question of De Stancy's domestic state out of his head from the first moment of seeing him.