range and unwelcome surprises in the foul nauseous air of some
long, underground cavern, was drawing nearer and nearer again to the
free, wholesome, open light of day.

Well, he had saved his young kinsman, and now he was called upon to face
the payment of the price. The time he had spent here, the bright,
beautiful, purifying time, was at an end. The past, of which, looking
back upon, he sickened, was not to be so easily buried after all. Had
it not risen up when least expected, to haunt him, to exact its
retribution? Hermia would certainly keep her word; caring nothing in
her vindictive spite, to what extent she blackened herself so long as
she could sufficiently besmirch him. Still he would do all he could, if
not to defeat her intentions, at any rate to draw half their sting.
One, at all events, should remain unsullied by the mire which he well
knew she would relentlessly spatter in all directions. That he
resolved.

Then a faint, vague, straw of a hope, beset him. What if she had been
playing a game of bluff? What if she was by no means so ready to give
herself away as she had affected to be? What if--when she found there
was nothing to be gained by it--she were to adopt the more prudent
course, and maintain silence? It was just a chance, but knowing so
well, her narrow, soulless nature, he knew it to be a slender one.

Even then, what? Even did it hold--it would not affect the main fact.
In the consummate purifying of this man's nature which the past few
weeks had effected, he looked backward thence with unutterable abasement
and loathing. As he had sown, so must he reap. The re-appearance of
the past personified had but emphasised that--had not altered it. He
would be the one to suffer, and he only, he thought, with a dull,
anguished kind of feeling which he strove hard to think was that of
consolation.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Oh, it is good to be at home again," said Lyn. "I don't care much for
going over to the Earles' at any time, but this time somehow or other, I
detested it. But--oh, I beg your pardon, Mr Blachland. And you found
your cousin there! How awkward and tactless you must think me!"

"You could never be either awkward or tactless, Lyn," he answered.
"Only thoroughly natural. Always be that, child. It is such a charm."

The girl smiled softly, half shyly. "Really, you are flattering me.
You spoil me as much as father doe