d almost an eternity to him. It was not
impossible that Mr. Clifford might be dead. If so, and if a path was
thus open to him to re-enter life, how different should his career be in
the future! How warily would he walk; with what earnest penitence and
thorough uprightness would he order all his ways! He would be what he
had only seemed to be hitherto: a man following Christ, as his
forefathers had done.

He was staying at a quiet inn in the village, and as soon as daybreak
came he started down the road along which Felicita must come, and waited
at the entrance of the valley, four miles from the little village. The
road was bad, for the heavy rains had washed much of it away, and it had
been roughly repaired by fir-trees laid along the broken edges; but it
was not impassable, and a one-horse carriage could run along it safely.
The rain had passed away, and the sun was shining. The high mountains
and the great rocks were clear from base to summit. If she came to-day
there was a splendid scene prepared for her eyes. Hour after hour passed
by, the short autumnal day faded into the dusk, and the dusk slowly
deepened into the blackness of night. Still he waited, late on into the
night, till the monastery bells chimed for the last time; but there was
no sign of her coming.

The next day passed as that had done. Felicita, then, had deserted him!
He felt so sure of Phebe that he never doubted that she had not received
his message. He had left only one thread of communication between
himself and home--a slender thread--and Felicita had broken it. There
was now no hope for him, no chance of learning what had befallen all his
dear ones, unless he ran the risk of discovery, and ventured back to
England.

But for Felicita and his children, he said to himself, it would be
better to go back, and pay the utmost penalty he owed to the broken laws
of his country. No hardships could be greater than those he had already
endured; no separation from companionship could be more complete. The
hard labor he would be doomed to perform would be a relief. His
conscience might smite him less sharply and less ceaselessly if he was
suffering the due punishment for his sin, in the society of his
fellow-criminals. Dartmoor Prison would be better for him than his
miserable and degrading freedom.

Still, as long as he could elude publicity and preserve his name from
notoriety, the burden would not fall upon Felicita and his children. His
mother would