the first time Phebe beheld the change in him, and stood
gazing at him in mute surprise and sorrow. He had always been careful
of his personal appearance, with a refinement and daintiness which had
grown especially fastidious since his marriage. But now his coat, wet
through during the night, and dried only by the keen air of the hills,
was creased and soiled, and his boots were thickly covered with mud and
clay. His face and hands were unwashed, and his hair hung unbrushed over
his forehead. Phebe's whole heart was stirred at this pitiful change,
and she laid her hand on his shoulder with a timid but affectionate
touch.

"Mr. Roland," she said, "go up-stairs and put yourself to rights a
little; and give me your clothes and your boots to brush. You'll feel
better when you are more like yourself."

He smiled faintly as he looked up at her quivering lips and eyes full of
unshed tears. But her homely advice was good, and he was glad to follow
it. Her little room above was lined with richly carved oak panels like
the kitchen below, and a bookcase contained her books, many of which he
had himself given to her. There was an easel standing under the highest
part of the shelving roof, where a sky-light was let into the thatch,
and a half-finished painting rested on it. But he did not give a glance
toward it. There was very little interest to him just now in Phebe's
pursuits, though she owed most of them to him.

By the time he was ready to go down, supper was waiting for him on the
warm and bright hearth, and he fell upon it almost ravenously. It was
twenty-four hours since he had last eaten. Phebe sat almost out of sight
in the shadow of a large settle, with her knitting in her hand, and her
eyes only seeking his face when any movement seemed to indicate that she
could serve him in some way. But in these brief glances she noticed the
color coming back to his face, and new vigor and resolution changing his
whole aspect.

"And now," he said, when his hunger was satisfied, "I can talk to you,
Phebe."

CHAPTER V.

A CONFESSION.

But Roland Sefton sat silent, with his shapely hands resting on his
knees, and his handsome face turned toward the hearth, where the logs
had burned down and emitted only a low and fitful flame. The little room
was scarcely lighted by it, and looked all the darker for the blackness
of the small uncurtained window, through which the ebony face of night
was peering in. This bare, uncovered