; he
had a curious sensation of being rested all over. The fact was, he had
gone through the most hair-breadth escapes, the most thrilling
adventures, during the last ten years. He had escaped alive, at the most
fearful odds. He had known hunger and thirst; he had been many, many
times face to face with death. For more than half the time of his exile
things had gone against him, and hard indeed had been his lot; then the
tide had slowly turned, and after five more years Philip Arnold had been
able to return to his native land, and had felt that it was allowed to
him to think with hope of the girl he had always loved.

He was in the same house with Frances now. She had not yet promised to
be his, but he did not feel anxious. The quiet of the English home, the
sweet, old-fashioned peace of the garden, the shade under the trees, the
songs of the old-fashioned home birds, the scent of the old-fashioned
home flowers, and the bright eyes and gentle voice of the prettiest
little English girl he had ever seen, had a mesmerizing effect upon him.
He wanted Frances; Frances was his one and only love; but he felt no
particular desire to hurry on matters, or to force an answer from her
until she was ready to give it.

He strolled into the stable-yard, where Pete, the under-gardener,
message-boy and general factotum, a person whom Watkins, the chief
manager, much bullied, was harnessing a shaggy little pony to a very
shaky-looking market cart. The cart wanted painting, the pony grooming,
and the harness undoubtedly much mending.

"What are you doing, Pete?" said Arnold.

"This yer is for Miss Frances," drawled the lad. "She's going into
Martinstown, and I'm gwine with her to hold the pony."

"No, you're not," said Arnold. "I can perform that office. Go and tell
her that I'm ready when she is."

Pete sauntered away, but before he reached the back entrance to the
house Frances came out. She walked slowly, and when she saw Philip her
face did not light up. He was startled, not at an obvious, but an
indefinable change in her. He could not quite tell where it lay, only he
suddenly knew that she was quite eight-and-twenty, that there were hard
lines round the mouth which at eighteen had been very curved and
beautiful. He wished she would wear the pretty hat she had on last
night; he did not think that the one she had on was particularly
becoming. Still, she was his Frances, the girl whose face had always
risen before him during the