you've brought Eli Tregarthen to his senses?--if I
may make so bold."

The Lord Proprietor flushed, remembering that Abe had witnessed the
interview in the walled garden. "I fancy the man has begun to see the
red light," he answered, carelessly. "At any rate, he has consented to
meet me and take a look over North Inniscaw."

"Well," said Abe, "you'll find him a good farmer; none better."

"And he'll find me a landlord, willing to let bygones be bygones. By
the way," added Sir Caesar, yet more carelessly, "I am curious to know
if I met that sister-in-law of his the other day?--a decidedly handsome
woman, and strikingly well dressed. In fact, I should say she bought
her clothes in Paris."

Abe stared, as though his master had suddenly taken leave of his
senses.

"I never been to Paris," he said, slowly. "When I seen her last she was
nettin' sand-eels, with her legs bare to the knee."

* * * * *

Sir Caesar walked indoors to fetch his hat and his gun. Though he rarely
used it, he invariably carried a gun under his arm in his walks about
the Islands. It helped his sense of being monarch of all he surveyed.

That sense was strong in him as he took the path which led across the
middle of the Island to North Inniscaw Farm. St. Lide's lay directly
behind him, to the south, and thus no Garrison Hill obtruded upon his
view to remind him of annoyances. The sea shone, the air was pure, the
whole seascape flashed white upon blue--white gulls wheeling aloft,
white breasts of puffins congregated on the smaller islets, white caps
of tiny waves where the breeze met the tide-race, on North Island the
white shaft of a lighthouse fronting the almost level sun. With a touch
of imagination the scene had become a prospect of the Cyclades, the
lighthouse a column to Aphrodite or the twin brothers of Helen. But the
Lord Proprietor was a Briton. He halted on the hill-side to inhale the
vigorous breeze, and his heart rejoiced that all he saw belonged to
him.

The path descended a stony hillside, crossed a marshy green hollow, and
mounted a second stony hill. Over the summit of it the low roofs of a
line of farm-buildings hove into sight. This was North Inniscaw; and
the Lord Proprietor, arriving punctually at three-thirty, found Eli
Tregarthen at the gate in converse with Sam Leggo, the hind in
temporary charge of the farm.

If Eli had begun to see reason, his face held out no promise of it. It