steful to him. The certainty that he must some day
lose Lyn, was the one ever-haunting grief of his life. He had pictured
some externally showy, but shallow-pated youth--on the principle that
such things go by opposites--who should one day carry off his Lyn, and
amid new surroundings and new interests, teach her--unconsciously
perhaps, but none the less effectually--to forget her old home, and the
father who loved and adored her from the crown of her sweet golden head
to her little feet. But here was a man whose experience of the world
was greater than his own, a man with an exhaustive knowledge of life,
who had immediately seen and appreciated this pearl of great price, a
strong man who had lived and done--no mere empty-headed,
self-sufficient, egotistical youth; and this man was his friend. He was
thoroughbred too, and the worst that could be said of him was that he
had sown some wild oats. But apart from the culminating stage in the
sowing of that crop--and even there probably there were great
extenuating circumstances--nothing mean, nothing dishonourable had ever
been laid to Hilary Blachland's charge. Personally, he had an immense
liking and regard for him, and, as he had said to himself before, Lyn's
instinct was never at fault. He remembered now that Blachland had
declared he could never stand English life again--and--he remembered
too, something else, up till now forgotten--how Blachland had half
chaffingly commissioned him to find out the lowest terms its owner would
accept for a certain farm which adjoined Lannercost, and which was for
sale, because he believed he would squat down for a little quiet life
when he returned from up-country. All this came back to him now, and
with a feeling of thankful relief, for it meant, in the event of his
idea proving well-founded, that his little Lyn would not be taken right
away from him after all.

So the months went by after Hilary Blachland's departure, but still his
memory was kept green and fresh within that household of three.

One day, when Bayfield was outside, indulging in some such speculation
as the above, out to him ran Lyn, flourishing one of the newly arrived
newspapers. She seemed in a state of quite unwonted excitement, and at
her heels came small Fred.

"Father, look, here's news! Look. Read that. Isn't it splendid?"

Bayfield took the paper, but before looking at the paragraph she was
trying to point out, he glanced admiringly at the girl, t