agreed that each of us should draw a
straw from a wheat-stack. He that drew the longest straw should have the
first right of speaking. Then we put our hands to the stack and drew our
straws. I beat him there--my straw was a good foot longer than his.

"You have beaten me again," he said. "Is it always to be so? But I will
wait, cousin Humphrey."

And so he turned away and left me.

Now, seeing how matters stood, it came to my mind that I had best put my
fortune to the test as quickly as possible, and therefore I made haste
over to the vicarage in order to find Rose and ask her to make me
either happy or miserable. And as good luck would have it, I found her
alone in the vicarage garden, looking so sweet and gracious that I was
suddenly struck dumb, and in my confusion could think of naught but that
my face was red, my attire negligent, and my whole appearance not at all
like that of a lover.

"Humphrey," said Rose, laughing at me, "you look as you used to look in
the days when you came late to your lessons, from robbing an orchard or
chasing Farmer Good's cattle, or following the hounds. Are you a boy
again?"

But there she stopped, for I think she saw something in my eyes that
astonished her. And after that I know not what we said or did, save that
presently we understood one another, and for the space of an hour
entirely forgot that there were other people in the world, or, indeed,
that there was any world at all.

So that evening I went home happy. And as I marched up to the manor,
whistling and singing, I met my cousin. He looked at me for a moment,
and then turned on his heel.

"I see how it is," he said. "You have no need to speak."

"Congratulate me, at any rate, cousin," I cried.

"Time enough for that," said he.

And from that moment he hated me, and waited his opportunity to do me a
mischief.

CHAPTER IV.

FOUL PLAY.

When a man has conceived a deadly hatred of one of his fellow-men, and
has further resolved to let slip no chance of satisfying it, his revenge
becomes to him simply a question of time, for the chance is sure to come
sooner or later.

It was this conviction, I think, that kept my cousin Jasper Stapleton
quiet during the next few months. He knew that in due course his revenge
would have an opportunity of glutting itself, and for that evil time he
was well content to wait. You may wonder that so young a man should have
possessed such cruel feelings toward one who had neve