ght parts there will be half a crown for each
of you," he said.

Then amid grins and chuckles and bobbing of curtsies he drove away,
leaving ecstasy and nudging elbows and little jumps of joy behind.

The drive across the wonderfulness of the moor was a soothing thing.
Why did it seem to give him a sense of home-coming which he had been
sure he could never feel again--that sense of the beauty of land and sky
and purple bloom of distance and a warming of the heart at drawing
nearer to the great old house which had held those of his blood for six
hundred years? How he had driven away from it the last time, shuddering
to think of its closed rooms and the boy lying in the four-posted bed
with the brocaded hangings. Was it possible that perhaps he might find
him changed a little for the better and that he might overcome his
shrinking from him? How real that dream had been--how wonderful and
clear the voice which called back to him, "In the garden--In the
garden!"

"I will try to find the key," he said. "I will try to open the door. I
must--though I don't know why."

When he arrived at the Manor the servants who received him with the
usual ceremony noticed that he looked better and that he did not go to
the remote rooms where he usually lived attended by Pitcher. He went
into the library and sent for Mrs. Medlock. She came to him somewhat
excited and curious and flustered.

"How is Master Colin, Medlock?" he inquired.

"Well, sir," Mrs. Medlock answered, "he's--he's different, in a manner
of speaking."

"Worse?" he suggested.

Mrs. Medlock really was flushed.

"Well, you see, sir," she tried to explain, "neither Dr. Craven, nor the
nurse, nor me can exactly make him out."

"Why is that?"

"To tell the truth, sir, Master Colin might be better and he might be
changing for the worse. His appetite, sir, is past understanding--and
his ways--"

"Has he become more--more peculiar?" her master asked, knitting his
brows anxiously.

"That's it, sir. He's growing very peculiar--when you compare him with
what he used to be. He used to eat nothing and then suddenly he began to
eat something enormous--and then he stopped again all at once and the
meals were sent back just as they used to be. You never knew, sir,
perhaps, that out of doors he never would let himself be taken. The
things we've gone through to get him to go out in his chair would leave
a body trembling like a leaf. He'd throw himself into such a state that