in a lower tone. "I have kept you too long from your
rest--I will keep you no longer. Depend on my remembering what you
have told me; depend on my standing between Allan and any enemy, man
or woman, who comes near him. Thank you, Mr. Brock; a thousand thousand
times, thank you! I came into this room the most wretched of living men;
I can leave it now as happy as the birds that are singing outside!"

As he turned to the door, the rays of the rising sun streamed through
the window, and touched the heap of ashes lying black in the black
fireplace. The sensitive imagination of Midwinter kindled instantly at
the sight.

"Look!" he said, joyously. "The promise of the Future shining over the
ashes of the Past!"

An inexplicable pity for the man, at the moment of his life when he
needed pity least, stole over the rector's heart when the door had
closed, and he was left by himself again.

"Poor fellow!" he said, with an uneasy surprise at his own compassionate
impulse. "Poor fellow!"

III. DAY AND NIGHT

The morning hours had passed; the noon had come and gone; and Mr. Brock
had started on the first stage of his journey home.

After parting from the rector in Douglas Harbor, the two young men had
returned to Castletown, and had there separated at the hotel door, Allan
walking down to the waterside to look after his yacht, and Midwinter
entering the house to get the rest that he needed after a sleepless
night.

He darkened his room; he closed his eyes, but no sleep came to him.
On this first day of the rector's absence, his sensitive nature
extravagantly exaggerated the responsibility which he now held in trust
for Mr. Brock. A nervous dread of leaving Allan by himself, even for a
few hours only, kept him waking and doubting, until it became a relief
rather than a hardship to rise from the bed again, and, following in
Allan's footsteps, to take the way to the waterside which led to the
yacht.

The repairs of the little vessel were nearly completed. It was a breezy,
cheerful day; the land was bright, the water was blue, the quick waves
leaped crisply in the sunshine, the men were singing at their work.
Descending to the cabin, Midwinter discovered his friend busily
occupied in attempting to set the place to rights. Habitually the least
systematic of mortals, Allan now and then awoke to an overwhelming sense
of the advantages of order, and on such occasions a perfect frenzy of
tidiness possessed him. He was down