uck with the likeness of this change
in him to that which she herself was suffering; yet it did not touch
her sympathies, and she was anxious forthwith to avoid coincidence with
him.

'You yourself offer the answer to that,' she replied. 'The very fact
that you have exerted such power, never mind by what means, puts you in
a relation to that man which is anything but idle or foolish. Isn't it
rather a great and moving thing that one can be a source of such vast
blessing to another? Money is only the accident. It is the kindness,
the human feeling, that has to be considered. You show what the world
might be, if all men were human. If I could do one act like that, Mr.
Egremont, I should cry with gratitude!'

He looked at her, and found the Annabel of his memory. With the
exception of Mrs. Ormonde, he knew no woman who spoke thus from heart
and intellect at once. The fervour of his admiration was rekindled.

'It is to you one should come for strength,' he said, 'when the world
weighs too heavily.'

Annabel was sober again.

'Do you often go and see him at his house?' she asked, speaking of
Grail.

'I am going on Friday night. I have not been since that one occasion
which I mentioned in a letter to Mr. Newthorpe. I had to write to him
yesterday about the repair of the house he is going to live in, and in
his reply this morning he asked me to come for an hour's talk.'

'You were curious, father told me, about the wife he had chosen. Have
you seen her yet?'

'Yes. She is quite a young girl.'

He was looking at a far-off sail, and as he replied his eyes kept the
same direction. Annabel asked no further question. Egremont laughed
before he spoke again.

'How absurdly one conjectures about unknown people I suppose it was
natural to think of Grail marrying someone not quite young and very
grave.'

'But I hope she is grave enough to be his fitting companion?'

He opened his lips, but altered the words he was about to speak.

'I only saw her for a few minutes--a chance meeting. She impressed me
favourably.'

They walked in a leisurely way for about half an hour, then turned,
Mists were creeping westward over Pevensey, and the afternoon air was
growing chill. There was no sound from the sea, which was divided
lengthwise into two tracts of different hue, that near the land a pale
green, that which spread to the horizon a cold grey.

Nothing passed between them which could recall their last day together,
nothing b