She did not believe this for one moment, but she had no desire to persist in her assertions when Lord Dorrington obviously thought that the man she had seen was a figment of her imagination.

“I have told the gamekeepers to keep a sharp watch out,” Lord Dorrington said, “and there will be an extra nightwatchman on duty tonight.”

“I am sorry to be so – difficult,” Alyna murmured.

“You are nothing of the sort,” Lord Dorrington replied. “And now I suggest we take my duelling pistols outside and I will teach you how to shoot.”

“I can handle a gun,” Alyna answered. “I used to try and fire my father’s pistols, but I suspect I am not very accurate.”

“Then that is something we must correct,” Lord Dorrington replied.

She hesitated a moment.

“I would not wish to shoot a bird or an – animal,” she said hesitatingly, hoping that he would not think her over-fastidious.

“No, of course not! “he said positively. “We will fire at a target. In fact I have already instructed the gardeners to set one up in the Bowling Alley. It’s a good place in which to practise. Come, let’s choose our weapons.”

Alyna followed him to the Gun Room, which was at the far end of the house.

Here were kept Lord Dorrington’s sporting guns that he used in England. Some of a different calibre he had used abroad and there were many ancient weapons that had been handed down through the centuries.

There was an old blunderbuss.

“One of the first,” Lord Dorrington explained, “ever to be used on a private coach.”

There was a musket that his grandfather had brought home from the wars under Marlborough. There were pistols of every type and size, but finally he opened a box of duelling pistols, which were light, well-balanced and ornamented with his crest.

“I cannot believe you use those often,” Alyna remarked.

“Why should you be so sure?” he enquired.

“I cannot imagine you wishing to fight a duel in hot-blooded anger.”

“One is not often hot-blooded at dawn,” Lord Dorrington replied.

“Of course, I had forgotten that was the time for a duel!”

Alyna looked down at the pistols.

“Would one shot kill a man?”

“It depends where you hit him.”

Alyna looked at the bullets that lay beside the pistols in the box.

“It seems strange that life can be ended so easily and so quickly,” she said.

“Just this life,” Lord Dorrington added, referring to their conversation of the night before.

She smiled.

“But it’s such a bother to be born all over again, to go through years of being a baby and a crying child, all for the evolution of the soul!”

“Now you see why it is important that you should be careful with your body once you acquire one,” Lord Dorrington said.

“That is certainly a point to consider,” Alyna conceded.