ves, and not sooner. I'll see
Mary, then lie down for an hour or two."

"You feel all right? Should you care to see Mannering?"

"I am right enough. Say 'Good-bye' to Vane and Miles Handford for
me. They may have to return here presently. One can't tell who may be
wanted, and who may not be. I don't know--these things are outside my
experience; but they had better both leave you their directions."

"I'll ask them."

Sir Walter visited his daughter, and changed his mind about sleeping.
She was passing through an hour of unspeakable horror. The dark temple
of realization had opened for her and she was treading its dreary
aisles. Henceforth for long days--she told herself for ever--sorrow and
sense of unutterable loss must be her companions and share her waking
hours.

They stopped together alone till the dusk came down and Mannering
returned. He stayed but a few minutes, and presently they heard his car
start again, while that containing the departing guests and Henry Lennox
immediately followed it.

In due course Septimus May returned to Chadlands with him. The clergyman
had heard of his son's end, and went immediately to see the dead
man. There Mary joined him, and witnessed his self-control under very
shattering grief. He was thin, clean-shaven--a grey man with smouldering
eyes and an expression of endurance. A fanatic in faith, by virtue of
certain asperities of mind and a critical temperament, he had never made
friends, won his parish into close ties, nor advanced the cause of his
religion as he had yearned to do. With the zeal of a reformer, he had
entered the ministry in youth; but while commanding respect for his own
rule of conduct and the example he set his little flock, their affection
he never won. The people feared him, and dreaded his stern criticism.
Once certain spirits, smarting under pulpit censure, had sought to
be rid of him; but no grounds existed on which they could eject the
reverend gentleman or challenge his status. He remained, therefore, as
many like him remain, embedded in his parish and unknown beyond it.
He was a poor student of human nature and life had dimmed his old
ambitions, soured his hopes; but it had not clouded his faith. With a
passionate fervor he believed all that he tried to teach, and held that
an almighty, all loving and all merciful God controlled every destiny,
ordered existence for the greatest and least, and allowed nothing
to happen upon earth that was not the best