ng moved, the missing bit
of silver was found behind it, and the martyr was released. There were
no apologies; but Paul was told to clean himself, and was whispered by
Dick that there was a tea-party that afternoon, and that he was to be
allowed to be present at it.

Then fell misery. He knew why the sponge loaf had been saved, and though
everybody was kind now, and seemed to feel in an unspeaking way that he
had been ill-used, he foresaw the near future and trembled.

He had been made to black his Sunday boots, he had been washed with such
desperate earnestness that his face and neck tingled, and he diffused
an atmosphere of yellow soap as he walked. He was in his best clothes,
which fitted him as a sausage is fitted by its skin; he was guillotined
in a white collar with a serrated inside edge, and guilt filled every
crevice of his soul.

'Fanny Ann,' said Mrs. Armstrong, putting the last finishing touches to
the tea-table, 'fetch the sponge loaf.'

A rollicking shout of laughter rose from the tent door, and went rolling
down the gorge, and the dream was over for the time.

CHAPTER II

It was mid-July, and even at an altitude of four thousand feet the sun
could scorch at noonday. The lonely man sat at his outlook, gazing down
the valley. There was a faint haze abroad, a thickening of the air so
apparently slight, and in itself so imperceptible, that he would not
have noticed it but for the fact that it blotted out many familiar
distant peaks, and narrowed his horizon to some four or five miles. He
waited for the sun to pierce this impalpable fog, but waited in vain.
The sun itself was red and angry in colour, and shrunk to half its
common size. Even at noontide the eye could look on it for a second or
two without being unbearably dazzled.

The shade in which he sat moved slowly eastward, and had almost deserted
him, when his hand felt a sudden fierce pang of pain as if an insect had
stung him. He moved hastily and examined the mark of what he took for
a sting. It was round, small, and red, as if the end of a hot
knitting-needle had been pressed upon the skin. Whilst he sat sucking
at the place to draw the pain away, and looking round in search of the
insect foe, the same quick burning pang struck him on the cheek. He
moved hastily again, and stared and listened keenly. There was not a
buzz of wings anywhere near at hand, and not an insect in sight. But as
he looked and harkened he was enlightened. A great