Until this moment she had seen no deer, but looking beyond the stag and across the sward she now saw groups near each other, stags cropping or looking towards her with lifted heads, does at a respectful but affectionate distance from them, some caring for their fawns.

The stag who had risen near her had merely walked through a gap in the boundary and now stood free to go where he would.
"He will get away," said Betty, knitting her black brows.

Ah! what a shame! Even with the best intentions one could not give chase to a stag.

She looked up and down the road, but no one was within sight.

Her brows continued to knit themselves and her eyes ranged over the park itself in the hope that some labourer on the estate, some woodman or game-keeper, might be about.
"It is no affair of mine," she said, "but it would be too bad to let him get away, though what happens to stray stags one doesn't exactly know." As she said it she caught sight of someone, a man in leggings and shabby clothes and with a gun over his shoulder, evidently an under keeper.