with even Land's End itself.

But Bob was not thinking of scenery as he got out his car. His mind
and heart were full of the thought that he was going to spend the
afternoon with Nancy Tresize, the fairest girl in a county of fair
women.

For years Bob had loved her--loved her with a love which seemed to him
all the greater because it appeared to be hopeless. As far as he could
remember, Nancy had never given him one shadow of hope, never by word
or action suggested that she cared for him in any way other than that
of a lifelong playmate and friend. But then, as Bob reflected, Nancy
was not like other girls. She was just a bundle of contradictions, and
was, as her brothers had often said, "always breaking out in new
places."

"Of course she'll not give me a chance to tell her what is in my
heart," he reflected, as the car spun along a winding lane, the hedges
of which rose high above his head; "but then I shall be with her.
That's something, anyhow."

Presently the grey, lichen-covered, weather-beaten walls of Penwennack,
Nancy's home, appeared, and Bob looked eagerly towards it as though he
were trying to discover something.

"I hope nothing has turned up to hinder her," he reflected. "I know
that Captain Trevanion is coming to dinner to-night, and people have it
that the Admiral favours him as--as a----"

But he would not, even in his mind, finish the sentence that was born
there. It was too horrible to contemplate, for to Bob, Nancy was the
only girl in the world. She might be wilful and unreasonable, she
might change her mind a dozen times in a day, she might at times seem
flippant, and callous to the feelings of others, she might even be "a
little bit of a flirt"--it made no difference to him. He knew that she
had not a mean fibre in her nature, and that a more honourable girl
never lived. Besides, even if she were, what in his moments of anger
and chagrin he called her, she was still Nancy, the only girl he had
ever loved and ever could love.

"Of course there's no chance for me," he reflected. "Trevanion is
always there, and any one can see he's madly in love with her. He
bears one of the oldest names in England too, he's heir to an old
title, and he's Captain in one of the crack regiments. And Nancy loves
a soldier. She comes of a fighting race, and thinks there's no
profession in the world worthy of being compared with the army."

Bob Nancarrow was the only son of Dr. Nancarrow, a man muc