ony disappear into the scullery, to reappear with a bundle
of sticks and a log. He watched him kneeling by the fire, manipulating
them deftly. He watched him fill a kettle with water, and put it on the
fire, set cups on the table, then open his bag, and produce bread,
butter, a packet of tea, and a lemon.

It was extraordinary what an alteration his sentiments had undergone
since entering Copse Cottage. Every trace of prejudice had vanished.
There was, in his mind, something pathetic in the skill, evidently born
of long practice, with which this tall lean man made his preparations for
the little meal.

From watching the man, Doctor Hilary turned his attention to the room. It
was fairly comfortable, at all events, if not in the least luxurious. But
the inevitable loneliness of the life that would be led within its walls,
struck him with a curious forcefulness.

"Do you know anything of gardening?" he demanded suddenly, breaking the
silence.

"Sure, it's little I don't know," returned Antony. "'Twas a bit of wild
earth my garden was before I took it in hand. Now there's peach trees,
and nectarines, and plum trees in it, and all the vegetables any man
could be wanting, and flowers fit for a queen's drawing-room. There's
roses as big as your fist. Oh, 'tis a fine garden it is out on--" he
broke off, "out beyont," he concluded.

"On the veldt," suggested Doctor Hilary quietly.

"'Twas the veldt I was after meaning," responded Antony smiling, "but I
thought 'twould be as well to get my tongue used to forgetting the sound
of the word, lest it should slip out some fine day, when I wasn't meaning
it to at all."

"Wise, anyhow," agreed Doctor Hilary, and he too smiled. "But you
understand that I--well, I happen to know all the circumstances of this
arrangement."

Antony laughed. "I was thinking as much," he confessed.

"I wonder--" began Doctor Hilary. And then he stopped. He had been about
to wonder aloud as to why on earth Antony should have accepted the
conditions, why he should have exchanged the freedom and untrammelled
spaces of the veldt for the conventional life of England, even with the
Hall and a goodly income, at the end of the year, to the balance. He knew
most assuredly that nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand
would have done so, and he knew that he himself was the thousandth who
would not. His exceedingly brief acquaintance with Antony had given him
the impression that he, also, was a thous