nds.

Immediately behind the Hall there was a spot where the fencing had been
so carelessly erected that two of the rails could be removed without
difficulty, leaving a broad gap, which gave us the opportunity for
many a stolen interview, though they were necessarily short, for the
general's movements were erratic, and no part of the grounds was secure
from his visitations.

How vividly one of these hurried meetings rises before me! It stands out
clear, peaceful, and distinct amid the wild, mysterious incidents which
were destined to lead up to the terrible catastrophe which has cast a
shade over our lives.

I can remember that as I walked through the fields the grass was damp
with the rain of the morning, and the air was heavy with the smell of
the fresh-turned earth. Gabriel was waiting for me under the hawthorn
tree outside the gap, and we stood hand-in-hand looking down at the long
sweep of moorland and at the broad blue channel which encircled it with
its fringe of foam.

Far away in the north-west the sun glinted upon the high peak of Mount
Throston. From where we stood we could see the smoke of the steamers as
they ploughed along the busy water-way which leads to Belfast.

"Is it not magnificent?" Gabriel cried, clasping her hands round my arm.
"Ah, John, why are we not free to sail away over these waves together,
and leave all our troubles behind us on the shore?"

"And what are the troubles which you would leave behind you, dear one?"
I asked. "May I not know them, and help you to bear them?"

"I have no secrets from you, John," she answered, "Our chief trouble is,
as you may guess, our poor father's strange behaviour. Is it not a sad
thing for all of us that a man who has played such a distinguished part
in the world should skulk from one obscure corner of the country to
another, and should defend himself with locks and barriers as though he
were a common thief flying from justice? This is a trouble, John, which
it is out of your power to alleviate."

"But why does he do it, Gabriel?" I asked.

"I cannot tell," she answered frankly. "I only know that he imagines
some deadly danger to be hanging over his head, and that this danger was
incurred by him during his stay in India. What its nature may be I have
no more idea than you have."

"Then your brother has," I remarked. "I am sure from the way in which he
spoke to me about it one day that he knows what it is, and that he looks
upon it as real."