passion of his life. The retrospect was
pleasant. There is always an agreeable sensation to a man of Milbanke's
temperament in looking back upon unruffled times. He became oblivious
of the ruts in the road and of the mare's erratic movements as he
traced the course of events to the point where, two months before, the
discovery of a dozen gold platters and as many drinking vessels,
embedded in a bog in the County Tyrone, had turned the eyes of the
archaeological world upon Ireland; and he, with other students of
antiquity, had been bitten with the desire to see the unique and
priceless objects for himself.

The journey to Tyrone had been a pleasant experience; and it was there,
under the mild exaltation of the genuine find, that it had suddenly
been suggested to his mind that certain ancient ruins, including a
remarkable specimen of the Irish round tower, were to be found on the
south-east coast not three miles from the property of his old college
friend.

Whether it was the archaeological instinct to resurrect the past, or
the merely human wish to re-live his own small portion of it, that had
prompted him to write to Asshlin must remain an open question. It is
sufficient that the letter was written and dispatched and that the
answer came in hot haste.

It had reached him in the form of a telegram running as follows: "Come
at once, and stay for a year. Stagnating to death in this isolation.
Asshlin." An hour later another, and a more voluminous message, had
followed, in which--as if by an after-thought--he had been given the
necessary directions as to the means of reaching Orristown.

It was at the point where his musings reached Asshlin's telegrams that
he awakened from his reverie and looked about him. For the first time a
personal interest in the country through which he was passing stirred
him. He realised that the salt sting of the sea had again begun to
mingle with the night mist, and judged thereby that the road had again
emerged upon the coast. He noticed that the hedges had become sparser;
that wherever a tree loomed out of the dusk it bore the mark of the sea
gales in a certain grotesqueness of shape.

This was the isolation of which Asshlin had spoken!

With an impulse extremely uncommon to him, he turned in his seat and
addressed the silent old coachman beside him.

"Has your master altered much in thirty years?" he asked.

There was silence for a while. Old Burke, with the deliberation of his
clas