r it amused her to see people, but of course she would enjoy
herself very well without it. She always enjoyed herself, even when she
went for a walk in the rain on a slippery Yorkshire road, all bundled up
in waterproofs and hoods and things for her poor people--she enjoyed it
all.

As for Claudius, he knew that if he went to Newport he must of necessity
stay with the Barkers, but as he had not yet learned to look at Mr.
Barker in the light of a rival, he thought this would be rather
convenient than otherwise. The fact that he would be within easy reach
of Margaret was uppermost in his mind.

During the last two days his relations with her had been of the
happiest. There was an understanding between them, which took the place
of a great deal of conversation. Claudius felt that his error in
speaking too boldly had been retrieved, if not atoned for, and that
henceforward his position was assured. He was only to be a friend, it
was true, but he still felt that from friendship to love was but a step,
and that the time would come. He thought of the mighty wooings of the
heroes of his Northern home, and he felt in him their strength and their
constancy. What were other men that he should think of them? He was her
accepted friend of all others. She had said she hoped to find in him
what she had never found before; and were not her words "always,
always!" still ringing in his ears? She had found it then in him, this
rare quality of friendship; she had found more,--a man who was a friend
and yet a lover, but who could curb the strong passion to the semblance
and docility of the gentler feeling. And when at last she should give
the long-desired sign, the single glance that bids love speak, she would
find such a lover as was not even dreamt of among the gods of the
Greeks, nor yet among berserk heroes of ice and storm and battle. He
felt to-day that he could endure to the end, for the end was worthy all
endurance.

And now he sat by her side and looked down into her face when she spoke,
and they laughed together. Verily was Claudius the proudest man in all
earth's quarters, and his blue eyes flashed a deep fire, and his
nostrils expanded with the breath of a victory won. Mr. Bellingham, on
the other side of the table, sparkled with a wit and grace that were to
modern table-talk what a rare flagon of old madeira, crusted with years,
but brimming with the imperishable strength and perfume of eternal
youth, might be to a gaudily-t