ou do nothing for thy own side?"

"Nothing. I am in the case of a very worthy old Roman lord who desired
to divorce his wife. There was a great outcry. All his friends were
amazed. 'Is she not handsome, virtuous, rich, amiable?' they asked.
'What hath she done to thee?' The Roman husband pointed to his sandal.
'Is it not new, is it not handsome and well made? But none of you can
tell where it pinches me.' That old Roman and I are brothers. Every
one praises 'my good wife, my rich wife, my handsome wife,' but for
all that, the matrimonial shoe pinches me."

This confidence brought the two men near together. Henceforward there
was no lack of conversation. While every other subject fails, a
domestic grievance is always new. It can be looked at in so many ways.
It has touched us on every side of our nature. We are never quite sure
where we have been right, and where wrong. So Lord Lynne and Jan
talked of 'My Lady' in Lynnton Castle, and of Margaret Vedder in her
Shetland home, but the conversations were not in the main unkind
ones. Very early in them Lynne told Jan how he had once seen his wife
standing on the Troll Rock at sunset, "lovely, and grand, and
melancholy, as some forsaken goddess in her desolated shrine."

They were sitting at the time among the ruins of a temple to Pallas.
The sun was setting over Lydian waters, and Jan seemed to see in the
amber rays a vision of the tall, fair woman of his love and dreams.
She ruled him yet. From the lonely islands of that forlorn sea she
called him. Not continents nor oceans could sever the mystical tie
between them. On the sands close by, some young Greek girls were
dancing to a pipe. They were beautiful, and the dance was picturesque,
but Jan hardly noticed them. The home-love was busy in his heart.
"Until death us part." Nothing is more certain, in a life of such
uncertainty.

Amid the loveliest scenes of earth they passed the winter months. It
was far on in May when they touched Gibraltar on their return. Letters
for both were waiting there. For Jan a short one from Dr. Balloch, and
a long one from Michael Snorro. He was sitting with Snorro's in his
hand when Lord Lynne, bright and cheerful, came out of his cabin. "I
have very fair news, Jan; what has the mail brought you?" he asked.

"Seldom it comes for nothing. I have heard that my mother-in-law is
dead. She was ever my friend, and I am so much the poorer. Peter Fae
too is in trouble; he is in trouble about me. Wi