y the fireside at home!'

She then ran off from him through the pelting rain like a hare; or more
like a pheasant when, scampering away with a lowered tail, it has a mind
to fly, but does not. Elfride was soon out of sight.

Knight felt uncomfortably wet and chilled, but glowing with fervour
nevertheless. He fully appreciated Elfride's girlish delicacy in
refusing his escort in the meagre habiliments she wore, yet felt
that necessary abstraction of herself for a short half-hour as a most
grievous loss to him.

He gathered up her knotted and twisted plumage of linen, lace, and
embroidery work, and laid it across his arm. He noticed on the ground
an envelope, limp and wet. In endeavouring to restore this to its proper
shape, he loosened from the envelope a piece of paper it had contained,
which was seized by the wind in falling from Knight's hand. It was blown
to the right, blown to the left--it floated to the edge of the cliff and
over the sea, where it was hurled aloft. It twirled in the air, and then
flew back over his head.

Knight followed the paper, and secured it. Having done so, he looked to
discover if it had been worth securing.

The troublesome sheet was a banker's receipt for two hundred pounds,
placed to the credit of Miss Swancourt, which the impractical girl had
totally forgotten she carried with her.

Knight folded it as carefully as its moist condition would allow, put it
in his pocket, and followed Elfride.

Chapter XXIII

'Should auld acquaintance be forgot?'

By this time Stephen Smith had stepped out upon the quay at Castle
Boterel, and breathed his native air.

A darker skin, a more pronounced moustache, and an incipient beard, were
the chief additions and changes noticeable in his appearance.

In spite of the falling rain, which had somewhat lessened, he took a
small valise in his hand, and, leaving the remainder of his luggage at
the inn, ascended the hills towards East Endelstow. This place lay in
a vale of its own, further inland than the west village, and though so
near it, had little of physical feature in common with the latter. East
Endelstow was more wooded and fertile: it boasted of Lord Luxellian's
mansion and park, and was free from those bleak open uplands which lent
such an air of desolation to the vicinage of the coast--always excepting
the small valley in which stood the vicarage and Mrs. Swancourt's old
house, The Crags.

Stephen had arrived nearly at the