bottom,
through which shining water ran, was a belt of cool dark-green. A faint
bleating of sheep came down the hill, and the beck splashed softly among
the stones.

Kit found the quiet soothing. He had had enough excitement and adventure,
and had half-consciously recognized that the life he had led in the
tropics was not for him. On the whole, he thought he had made good. One
did one's best at the work one found, but intrigue was not his proper
job. For all that, he did not mean to philosophize and had something to
think about.

When he sold the _Rio Negro_ and paid his debts he found a larger
surplus than he had hoped. Moreover, his agents had not yet enforced all
business claims and might be able to send him a fresh sum. The money he
brought home would not have made him a rich man in America, but it would
go a long way in the dale, and the soil and flocks at Ashness could be
improved by modern methods and carefully spent capital. Kit had begun at
once and found his task engrossing, but when the day's work was over he
felt a gentle melancholy and a sense of loneliness. Adam and Peter had
gone and he had loved them both; he knew he would not meet their like
again. Yet he had not lost them altogether. They had, so to speak, blazed
the trail for him, and he must try to follow, fronting obstacles with
their fearless calm.

Then he took his pipe from his mouth and his heart beat as a figure came
round a bend of the road. The girl was some distance off and he could
not see her face, but he knew her and braced himself. He had known the
meeting must come and much depended on her attitude. Grace was no longer
a romantic girl, and though he had not forgotten her, she might have
been persuaded that she had nothing to do with him. Now she must choose
her line, and he sat still, half prepared for her to pass him with a
bow. While he waited, his dog got up and ran along the road. Old Bob
knew Grace, and it looked as if she had spoken to, and perhaps petted,
him while his master was away.

She stopped, and Kit felt ashamed when he got up, for she gave him her
hand with a friendly look and he saw she had not changed as much as he
had thought. The proud calm he approved was perhaps more marked, but he
imagined the generous rashness he had liked as well still lurked beneath
the surface. He had met attractive girls in the tropics who knew they
were beautiful and added by art to their physical charm. Grace, however,
used hers uncons