people like pitch," said Cynthia.

"Not clean people," threw back West.

"No?" she said. "Well, perhaps not. Anyway, it doesn't apply in this
case. So I sha'n't drop you, Mr. West, thank you all the same!
Good-night!"

She offered him her hand with a gesture that was nothing short of regal.
And he--because he could do no less--took it, gripped it, and went his
way.

"Isn't he rude?" murmured Cynthia; and she said it as if rudeness were
the highest virtue a man could display.

VI

The early winter dusk was falling upon a world veiled in cold, drifting
rain. Away in the distance where the castle stood, many lights had begun
to glimmer. It was the cosy hour when sportsmen collect about the
fireside with noisy talk of the day's achievements.

The man who strode down the long, dark avenue towards the bailiff's
house smiled bitterly to himself as he marked the growing illumination.
It was four days since Cynthia Mortimer had extended to him the hand of
friendship, and he had not seen her since. He was, in fact, studiously
avoiding her, more studiously than he had ever avoided any one in his
life before. His daily visits to the castle he now paid early in the
morning, before Babbacombe himself was dressed, long before any of the
guests were stirring. And his refusal either to dine at the castle or to
join the sportsmen during the day was so prompt and so emphatic that
Babbacombe had refrained from pressing his invitation.

Not a word had passed between them upon the subject of Cynthia's
recognition. West adhered strictly to business during his brief
interviews with his chief. The smallest digression on Babbacombe's part
he invariably ignored as unworthy of his attention, till even
Babbacombe, with all his courtly consideration for others, began to
regard him as a mere automaton, and almost to treat him as such.

Had he realised in the faintest degree what West was enduring at that
time, his heart must have warmed to the man, despite his repellent
exterior. But he had no means of realising.

The rust of twelve bitter years had corroded the bolts of that closed
door behind which the swindler hid his lonely soul, and it was not in
the power of any man to move them.

So grimly he went his silent way, cynical, as only those can be to whom
the best thing in life has been offered too late; proud, also, after his
curious, iron-clad fashion, refusing sternly to bear a lance again in
that field which had witnessed