quivering gloom of the woods again, but his step on the gravel was sharp
and firm. Every faculty of him seemed to have waked. A blackbird bugled
cheerily in the underwood, and Ellington felt a strange thrill. He
reached the Hall, and sat down to wait for the dressing-bell, but the
hour before dinner, usually so heavy to him, went by briskly. During
dinner he made no attempt at sustained conversation, yet he answered his
grandfather's few short questions with a ready cheerfulness and fluency
which made the old man regard him with narrowed eyes.

When the night came fairly on, he sat looking out of his window into the
scented darkness. Had you asked him what he was thinking of, he could
not have told you, yet I suppose something unusual must have been
passing through his mind, for, when he had finally risen with a sigh of
content to close the window, he stepped up to the looking-glass and
regarded himself with curiosity. Once he smiled, as if by way of
practice, and then a sudden sense of shame seemed to come over him, for
he reddened and turned away. Most people will be able to guess what
ailed him, but he himself did not know at the time.

The week went away but slowly. On the Wednesday evening the old Squire
said: "You'll go over to Branspath to-morrow morning early. Richards
will drive you in, and you must call on Chernside and tell him I wish to
see him in the afternoon about Gibson's lease. He'll know what you
mean." The young man shifted uneasily. "Couldn't you send a note by
Richards?" He felt his face hot as he asked the question.

"Well, yes, I could, if I chose, but I want Richards to order a few
things in the High Street. He'll pick you up when you've done with
Chernside." At two o'clock next day young Mr. Ellington was back again
at the Hall. As he stepped down from the dog-cart, Richards pointed to
the horse. "I doubt we've done him some harm, Sir. Forty-five minutes
from the High Moor--the black mare couldn't do it no quicker. Matchem
here hasn't been driven for three weeks now." The horse was drooping his
head, the lather slid down his flanks,--so I fancy there had been hard
going.

The young Squire gave an indifferent look and hurried indoors. Within an
hour he was walking rather quickly toward the sea, without one sign of
the dreaminess that overweighed him when last he took the same road.
Presently (he knew it would come) a firm step came over the gravel, and
his heart went fast. Before he had got ri