Erme's ailing parent. The hours spent there by Corvick were
present to my fancy as those of a chessplayer bent with a silent
scowl, all the lamplit winter, over his board and his moves. As my
imagination filled it out the picture held me fast. On the other
side of the table was a ghostlier form, the faint figure of an
antagonist good-humouredly but a little wearily secure--an
antagonist who leaned back in his chair with his hands in his
pockets and a smile on his fine clear face. Close to Corvick,
behind him, was a girl who had begun to strike me as pale and
wasted and even, on more familiar view, as rather handsome, and who
rested on his shoulder and hung on his moves. He would take up a
chessman and hold it poised a while over one of the little squares,
and then would put it back in its place with a long sigh of
disappointment. The young lady, at this, would slightly but
uneasily shift her position and look across, very hard, very long,
very strangely, at their dim participant. I had asked them at an
early stage of the business if it mightn't contribute to their
success to have some closer communication with him. The special
circumstances would surely be held to have given me a right to
introduce them. Corvick immediately replied that he had no wish to
approach the altar before he had prepared the sacrifice. He quite
agreed with our friend both as to the delight and as to the honour
of the chase--he would bring down the animal with his own rifle.
When I asked him if Miss Erme were as keen a shot he said after
thinking: "No, I'm ashamed to say she wants to set a trap. She'd
give anything to see him; she says she requires another tip. She's
really quite morbid about it. But she must play fair--she SHAN'T
see him!" he emphatically added. I wondered if they hadn't even
quarrelled a little on the subject--a suspicion not corrected by
the way he more than once exclaimed to me: "She's quite incredibly