s only met her gaze--Hoole's works, Jessey, John Sadler,
Manley.... Of the ten small volumes containing Miss Manley's
outpourings, the seventh was out of place, and Valerie stretched out a
hand to straighten it. As she did so, she saw the title--_The Lost
Lover_. For a moment she stared at it. Then she turned and,
descending one step of the ladder, sat down on the edge of the pulpit
and buried her face in her hands.

We will leave her there with her beauty, her shapely head bowed, her
exquisite figure hunched with despair, her cold, white, pointed fingers
pressed tight upon those glorious temples, her little palms hiding the
misery of that striking face, her knees convulsively closed, that
shining foot tucked beneath the other in the contortion of grief. We
will leave her there on the ladder, learning that sorry lesson which
Great Love only will set its favourites when they have gone a-whoring
after false gods in whom is no faith.

* * * * *

At half-past six upon the following Monday evening Lyveden returned to
his cottage with Patch at his heels. In spite of the hard frost, the
work had gone well. A bridge had been finished which should laugh to
scorn the elements for a long century; a sore-needed staff had been set
beneath the arm-pit of a patriarch oak; a truant stream had been tucked
into its rightful bed. It had been a good day.

Arrived at his door, Anthony turned and looked upward. The cold white
brilliance of the stars stared winking back; the frozen silence of the
firmament hung like a magic cloak upon the shoulders of darkness; the
pool of Night lay in a breathless trance, ice-cold and fathomless.
Anthony opened the door and passed in.

Within three minutes the lamp and lantern were lighted and a fire was
crackling upon the hearth; within ten, fuel had been fetched and water
drawn from the well; within twenty, the few odd jobs on whose
performance the comfort of regularity depended, had been disposed of;
and by seven o'clock the Sealyham had had his dinner, and his master,
washed and groomed, was free to sit down to a substantial meal.

At the first glance, the latter's dress was highly reminiscent of the
warfare so lately dead. The shade and stuff of the stout breeches, the
heavy ankle boots, the grey shirt-cuff emerging from the sleeve of the
coarse cardigan, were old familiar friends. The fact that Lyveden had
laid aside his collar heightened the comparison. Only