Did he fear me?
Had Woodroffe told him of our strange encounter in Leghorn?
His pronounced antipathy towards me caused me to watch him surreptitiously, and more closely than perhaps I should otherwise have done.

He was a man of gloomy mood, and often he would leave his guests and take walks alone, musing and brooding.

On several occasions I followed him in secret, and found to my surprise that although he made long detours in various directions, yet he always arrived at the same spot at the same hour--five o'clock.
The place where he halted was on the edge of a dark wood on the brow of a hill about three miles from Rannoch--a good place to get woodpigeon, as they came to roost.

It was fully two miles across the hills from the high road to Moniaive, and from the break the gray wall where he was in the habit of sitting to rest and smoke, there stretched the beautiful panorama of Loch Urr and the heatherclad hills beyond.
Leithcourt never went direct to the place, but always so timed his walks that he arrived just at five, and remained there smoking cigarettes until half-past, as though awaiting the arrival of some person he expected.

Once or twice his guests suggested shooting pigeons at sundown, but he always had some excuse for opposing the proposal, and thus the party, unsuspecting the reason, were kept away from that particular lonely spot.
In my youth I had sat many a quiet hour there in the darkening gloom and shot many a pigeon, therefore I knew the wood well, and was able to watch the tenant of Rannoch from points where he least suspected the presence of another.
Once, when I was alone with Muriel, I mentioned her father's capacity for walking alone, whereupon she said-- "Oh, yes, he was always fond of walking.