ood; but
Ravenel had deserted them, until one day John Halifax met him, greatly
changed from the gentle youth of the past, at Norton Bury. John invited
him to ride over with him to Enderley.

"Enderly? How strange the word sounds! Yet I should like to see the
place again," said Ravenel, who decided to accompany John Halifax and
Phineas Fletcher in their drive back to Beechwood. He inquired kindly
for all the family, and was told that Guy and Walter were as tall as
himself, while the daughter----

"Your daughter?" said his lordship, with a start. "Oh, yes; I
recollect--Baby Maud! Is she at all like--like----"

"No," said John Halifax. Neither said more than this; but it seemed as
if their hearts warmed to one another, knitted by the same tender
remembrance.

_IV.--The Journey's End_

Lord Ravenel had returned to reside again at Luxmore Hall, and his
visits to Beechwood became as regular as they had been in the old days
at the Halifax home, when Muriel was alive. It was the society of Maud
in which his lordship now delighted, though he never forgot the serene
and happy days he had spent with her blind sister.

Before long, Lord Ravenel sought to be regarded as suitor for the hand
of Maud, who would thus have become the future Countess of Luxmore. He
said that he would wait two years for her, if her father wished it; but
John Halifax would make him no promise, and urged him rather to
endeavour first to become a more worthy man, so that he might redeem the
evil reputation which the conduct of his own father had brought upon the
name of Luxmore.

"Do you recognise what you were born to be?" said Halifax to him. "Not
only a nobleman, but a gentleman; not only a gentleman, but a man--man
made in the image of God. Would to heaven that any poor word of mine
could make you feel all that you are--and all that you might be!"

"You mean, Mr. Halifax, what I might have been--now it is too late."

"There is no such word as 'too late' in the wide world--nay, not in the
universe."

Lord Ravenel for a time sat silent; then he rose to go, and thanked Mrs.
Halifax for all her kindness in a voice choked with emotion.

"For your husband, I owe him more than kindness, as perhaps I may prove
some day; if not, try to believe the best of me you can. Good-bye!"

It was not many weeks after this that the old Earl of Luxmore died in
France, and it then became known that his son, who now succeeded to the
title, had voluntarily giv