tle church, and the congregation was small. Mr. Granger went
through the service with about as much liveliness as a horse driving a
machine. He ground it out, prayers, psalms, litany, lessons, all in the
same depressing way, till Geoffrey felt inclined to go to sleep, and
then took to watching Beatrice's sweet face instead. He wondered what
made her look so sad. Hers was always a sad face when in repose, that he
knew, but to-day it was particularly so, and what was more, she looked
worried as well as sad. Once or twice he saw her glance at Mr. Davies,
who was sitting opposite, the solitary occupant of an enormous pew, and
he thought that there was apprehension in her look. But Mr. Davies
did not return the glance. To judge from his appearance nothing was
troubling his mind.

Indeed, Geoffrey studying him in the same way that he instinctively
studied everybody whom he met, thought that he had never before seen a
man who looked quite so ox-like and absolutely comfortable. And yet
he never was more completely at fault. The man seemed stolid and cold
indeed, but it was the coldness of a volcano. His heart was a-fire.
All the human forces in him, all the energies of his sturdy life, had
concentrated themselves in a single passion for the woman who was so
near and yet so far from him. He had never drawn upon the store, had
never frittered his heart away. This woman, strange and unusual as
it may seem, was absolutely the first whose glance or voice had ever
stirred his blood. His passion for her had grown slowly; for years
it had been growing, ever since the grey-eyed girl on the brink of
womanhood had conducted him to his castle home. It was no fancy, no
light desire to pass with the year which brought it. Owen had little
imagination, that soil from which loves spring with the rank swiftness
of a tropic bloom to fade at the first chill breath of change. His
passion was an unalterable fact. It was rooted like an oak on our stiff
English soil, its fibres wrapped his heart and shot his being through,
and if so strong a gale should rise that it must fall, then he too would
be overthrown.

For years now he had thought of little else than Beatrice. To win her he
would have given all his wealth, ay, thrice over, if that were possible.
To win her, to know her his by right and his alone, ah, that would be
heaven! His blood quivered and his mind grew dim when he thought of it.
What would it be to see her standing by him as she stood n