ocrites: they must be, since
as educated men they could not well believe the fables they were
paid to teach! But it was hard to associate hypocrisy with Mr.
Stafford, whose fond ambition it was to nail Lawrence Hyde to
lecture on his Chinese travels before the Bible Class. "Oh, nothing
religious," he explained, holding his victim firmly by the coat as
Lawrence edged away. "Only half an hour's story-telling to put a few
new ideas into their heads--as if you were talking to a young brother
of your own. I'm always trying to get them to emigrate, but they
need a great deal of shoving." Lawrence said they could not emigrate
to China, and, further, that he didn't regard them as brothers. "How
narrow you are, some of you University men!" sighed Mr. Stafford.
"What a concept of society! But," brightening, "you're not so bad as
you're painted. Come, come! a fifth-of-August recruit can't very
well deny that we're all brothers in arms?" Before Lawrence escaped
he was not sure that he hadn't pledged himself to an address on
"Fringes of the Empire," with special reference to the C.U.M.C.A.

It was too sunny to fish, but the trout lured him, and from the
cross-roads by the stone bridge he struck into a footpath that
led upstream into the hills, behind whose green spurs Chilmark
before long was out of sight. Here it was lonely country.
Sometimes on a headland the sun flashed white over a knot of
labourers, scything the hay where no machine could go: sometimes
a shepherd's cote gleamed far off above the pale wattlings of a
fold: but as he wound on--and on into the Plain there was no
sign of man in all the hot landscape, and no motion but the
bicker of the stream over its stony bed, and the hum of insect
life busy on its millions of dark and tiny vibrant wings. Not a
breath of wind stirred among these grassy valleys, and Lawrence,
feeling warm, had sat down by a pool under a sapling birchtree,
when he heard a step on the path. It was Isabel Stafford.

He had hardly seen her again overnight, for Val had carried his
young sister away before ten o'clock. He waited for her in the
rare shadow of the birchtree, a tall powerful figure in a white
drill suit of the tropics, his fair skin and black eyes shaded by
a wide Panama hat. Isabel as she drew near was vexed to find
herself blushing. She was a little shy of Captain Hyde, a little
averse to meet his sparkling eyes.

"Isn't it hot?" she said, frankly wiping her face with a