nce with Avice,
and he knew all the details of the new life which had opened up for her
and her father with the coming of Mr. Wraythwaite of Wraye. Her letters
were full of vivid descriptions of Wraye itself, and of the steward's
house in which she and Harborough--now appointed steward and agent to
his foster-brother's estate--had taken up their residence. She had a
gift of description, and Brereton had gained a good notion of Wraye from
her letters--an ancient and romantic place, set amongst the wild hills
of the Border, lonely amidst the moors, and commanding wide views of
river and sea. It was evidently the sort of place in which a lover of
open spaces, such as he knew Avice to be, could live an ideal life. But
Brereton had travelled down from London on purpose to ask her to leave
it.

He had come at last on a sudden impulse, unknown to any one, and
therefore unexpected. Leaving his bag at the little station in the
valley at which he left the train just as the sun was setting behind the
surrounding hills, he walked quickly up a winding road between groves of
fir and pine towards the great grey house which he knew must be the
place into which the man from Australia had so recently come under
romantic circumstances. At the top of a low hill he paused and looked
about him, recognizing the scenes from the descriptions which Avice had
given him in her letters. There was Wraye itself--a big, old-world
place, set amongst trees at the top of a long park-like expanse of
falling ground; hills at the back, the sea in the far distance. The
ruins of an ancient tower stood near the house; still nearer to
Brereton, in an old-fashioned flower garden, formed by cutting out a
plateau on the hillside, stood a smaller house which he knew--also from
previous description--to be the steward's. He looked long at this before
he went nearer to it, hoping to catch the flutter of a gown amongst the
rose-trees already bright with bloom. And at last, passing through the
rose-trees he went to the stone porch and knocked--and was half-afraid
lest Avice herself should open the door to him. Instead, came; a
strapping, redcheeked North-country lass who stared at this evident
traveller from far-off parts before she found her tongue. No--Miss Avice
wasn't in, she was down the garden, at the far end.

Brereton hastened down the garden; turned a corner; they met
unexpectedly. Equally unexpected, too, was the manner of their meeting.
For these two had be