ent. Always
the false gaiety of gaiety arranged--always that pistol to the head:
'Confound you! enjoy yourself!' How could he enjoy himself with the
thought of Sylvia in her room, made ill by his brutality! The vision
of her throat working, swallowing her grief, haunted him like a little
white, soft spectre all through the long drive out on to the moor, and
the picnic in the heather, and the long drive home--haunted him so that
when Anna touched or looked at him he had no spirit to answer, no spirit
even to try and be with her alone, but almost a dread of it instead.

And when at last they were at home again, and she whispered:

"What is it? What have I done?" he could only mutter:

"Nothing! Oh, nothing! It's only that I've been a brute!"

At that enigmatic answer she might well search his face.

"Is it my husband?"

He could answer that, at all events.

"Oh, no!"

"What is it, then? Tell me."

They were standing in the inner porch, pretending to examine the
ancestral chart--dotted and starred with dolphins and little full-rigged
galleons sailing into harbours--which always hung just there.

"Tell me, Mark; I don't like to suffer!"

What could he say, since he did not know himself? He stammered, tried to
speak, could not get anything out.

"Is it that girl?"

Startled, he looked away, and said:

"Of course not."

She shivered, and went into the house. But he stayed, staring at the
chart with a dreadful stirred-up feeling--of shame and irritation, pity,
impatience, fear, all mixed. What had he done, said, lost? It was that
horrid feeling of when one has not been kind and not quite true, yet
might have been kinder if one had been still less true. Ah! but it was
all so mixed up. It felt all bleak, too, and wintry in him, as if he had
suddenly lost everybody's love. Then he was conscious of his tutor.

"Ah! friend Lennan--looking deeply into the past from the less romantic
present? Nice things, those old charts. The dolphins are extremely
jolly."

It was difficult to remember not to be ill-mannered then. Why did
Stormer jeer like that? He just managed to answer:

"Yes, sir; I wish we had some now."

"There are so many moons we wish for, Lennan, and they none of them come
tumbling down."

The voice was almost earnest, and the boy's resentment fled. He felt
sorry, but why he did not know.

"In the meantime," he heard his tutor say, "let us dress for dinner."

When he came down to the drawing-room