f to ask questions. When they
were left alone, Mark stretched out his hand to Roland, saying,
"Roland, forgive me! I spoke to you this morning in a way of which I
am ashamed; we have lived so long together--and yet we came nearer to
quarrelling to-day than we have ever done before; and it was my
fault."

Roland smiled, and held Mark's hand for a moment. "Oh, I had not given
it another thought," he said; "the wonder is that you can bear with an
idle fellow as you do." Then they talked for awhile with the pleasant
glow of friendliness that two good comrades feel when they have been
reconciled. But late in the evening Roland said, "Was there any story,
Mark, about your grandfather's leaving any treasure of money behind
him?"

The question grated somewhat unpleasantly upon Mark's mood; but he
controlled himself and said, "No, none that I know of--except that he
found the estate rich and left it poor--and what he did with his
revenues no one knows--you had better ask the old men of the village;
they know more about the house than I do. But, Roland, forgive me once
more if I say that I do not desire Sir James's name to be mentioned
between us. I wish we had not entered his room; I do not know how to
express it, but it seems to me as though he had sate there, waiting
quietly to be summoned, and as though we had troubled him, and--as
though he had joined us. I think he was an evil man, close and evil.
And there hangs in my mind a verse of Scripture, where Samuel said to
the witch, 'Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up?' Oh," he went
on, "I do not know why I talk wildly thus"; for he saw that Roland was
looking at him with astonishment, with parted lips; "but a shadow has
fallen upon me, and there seems evil abroad."

From that day forward a heaviness lay on the spirit of Mark that could
not be scattered. He felt, he said to himself, as though he had
meddled light-heartedly with something far deeper and more dangerous
than he had supposed--like a child that has aroused some evil beast
that slept. He had dark dreams too. The figure that he had seen among
the rocks seemed to peep and beckon him, with a mocking smile, over
perilous places, where he followed unwilling. But the heavier he grew
the lighter-hearted Roland became; he seemed to walk in some bright
vision of his own, intent upon a large and gracious design.

One day he came into the hall in the morning, looking so radiant that
Mark asked him half enviously what