noways. I thought how I was never one for drink, and always done my best. There was others done wrong, and their children was spared; there, it did zim that hard! Then, when I was like to rive asunder with that went on inside of me, I zes to meself, 'Stand up, Dan'l Pink, and be a man! You've a had many mercies, and what be you to cry out agen One above when trouble is zent?' Then I zaid over the Belief, and it zimmed comforting, and I got up and done zommat for the ship."

Daniel Pink did not say all this straight off, but with many breaks and pauses, and much apparent casting about for words, symbols which are hard to come at when one is not accustomed to handle them and turn them over and about at will; sometimes he stopped in the middle of a sentence with a catch in his breath, sometimes he looked at Alice for sympathy, sometimes away over the windy landscape. But at this point his manner altered; he turned his face from Alice and seemed to forget her presence and his own identity and spoke in a deeper key; more fluently and with less country accent.

"I sat on the steps o' the hut there," he said, pointing to a wheeled and movable house; "I was afeared to goo in and lay down and leave the yowes, and I fell athinking o' they dree agen, and the littlest that pretty! Then it came over me agen as though I should rive asunder, and I shet my teeth and bended my head down and groaned, and held my arms tight over my chest to keep it from bursting. 'Twas the full o' the moon, and the grass white with hrime. I seen all as plain as daylight, the ship feeding, and the new-dropped lambs moving about, and the stars above, when I looked up. Then out of the shade cast by the hill I seen a man coming tow'rds me."

The shepherd paused; his face changed, a solemn, rapt expression came over it- he was evidently forgetful of all around him. Alice held her breath and left watching his face as she had been doing, covering her own with her hand and bending a little forward, her arm stayed upon her knee. "A man," he continued, "tall, vurry tall, and fine-made, and dressed like St. John in Arden church window, with long, curled hair, and light shining round his head. I came over that still and hushed, like when the wind falls at zunzet, and the sea's like glass, and the barley stands without a shake. I couldn't so much as stand up, I was that holden. I looked and looked, as though I could never leave off looking. The ship took no notice, and he passed through them, slow and solemn, with never a sound. I seen the

red marks on the hands and feet; but when he was quite nigh, I could only look at the faäce. 'Twas the look in the eyes that went through me. I caint say what that look was like, it made me that happy and quiet. The figure passed that close, the blue dress, the color of the sky, nigh touched me. I couldn't turn when he passed beyond; I was holden. But 'twas no drame the ship was moving about, and feeding, and the lambs bleating as plain as day. When I could turn, there was the moon shining bright as day, and the frost on the grass, and the stars above, and nothing more. Then I zimmed that happy, and light, and peaceful - I knowed there was nothing I couldn't bear after that!"

The shepherd ceased speaking, but continued his rapt gaze straight ahead thinking thoughts that Alice dared not interrupt by words.

At last he rose, took up his bill-hook and went on pointing his spars.

"And nothing seems hard to bear now, Shepherd?" she asked presently.

"No, Miss, nothing zims hard now. I med hae a power o' trouble yet, plase God I lives long enough, but I 'lows I shaint never fret no more," he replied.

The wind had sobbed itself to rest now, and the sunset was blazing through great bars of rending cloud in marvelous splendor. Alice's feet seemed scarcely to touch the ground as she sped homeward, deeply touched and lifted up in heart, thinking thoughts that no words could express.

Daniel Pink could not even read, he had scarcely half a language with which to clothe his simple thoughts; the mighty Past was to him a blank, the garnered treasure of the thoughts of ages and the beautiful songs of great poets, the glory of art, and the refinements and adornments of human life, were all denied to him. Yet Alice's heart bowed in reverence before him, he had that which great prophets and mighty kings had desired in vain. Could she not emulate his simple resignation? she wondered. She had now reached the church-yard, and leant on the low wall to look at the three little graves.

Daily she had prayed to be a loving wife to Gervase Rickman, and daily the thought of the marriage, now the most obvious of duties, had grown more terrible, until the simple incident of trying on the wedding-dress had overpowered her. If she could but tear Edward out of her heart and her heart with him, she

would willingly have done it. But since the unfortunate day in the summer, when the news of her engagement burst upon him, her peace had vanished; she could not forget his face, his silence, and his one swift glance into her eyes. Yet here, on this very spot, he had offered himself to Sibyl.

It was too late to hesitate she was as much bound as if actually married; and her heart was incapable of treachery, especially to Gervase, and to the old man who hung upon her with such trustful dependence. To marry this man, whom she liked but could not love, was plainly her duty, to swerve from it was cowardice; marriage was in her eyes a sacrament, love would doubtless be given with it. Peace had come to Daniel Pink, would it be denied her in due time? She would wait patiently and shrink from no duty, however hard.

Alice little thought that at that very hour, a friar, in the narrow solitude of his cell, was driving her from his mind with literal scourging of the flesh, as if an image so wholesome and so suggestive of good, could in any wise harm. Truly peace and self-conquest come in various guises, yet only by one way, the way of Faith and Duty.

No vision shone upon Alice, nor did she use bodily pain to conquer what seemed invincible; but at last she walked home through the darkening fields with perfect peace in her heart, confident that however her soul might now shrink, she would have strength to be true at the difficult moment and to the end. When she saw Sibyl's sweet face on reaching home, she returned her smile frankly without inward self-reproach, listened with due interest to the account she gave of the afternoon's business, and commended her purchases with sufficient animation. Yet she was glad that Sibyl left her for a few hours' study; and when she was gone, she sank into an armchair by the drawingroom fire, thankful to enjoy the luxury of solitude.

Mr. Rickman was busy in his study; the servants were in another part of the house, which was very still, so still that the hall-clock's ticking was audible, and every little movement in the rose-tree, trained by the window, asserted itself. Through all this stillness, she presently heard a carriage drive up and the door-bell ring, and started into a listening attitude. "Gervase!" she murmured, remembering that he had said he might run down any day for a night or two.

It was not Gervase; for he did not open the door and walk in, but waited while a servant came from some remote attic,

whence Alice heard her descend in the silence and pass from corridor to corridor, her footsteps echoing in Alice's strained ears, and finally open the door just as the visitor had raised his hand to ring again.

Why should Alice's heart beat so fast? She could not hear more than a faint murmur of a man's voice when the door opened; she did not know what she expected. But when the maid tripped in and said, "Captain Annesley wishes to see Miss Lingard," she thought that she had known who was there from the first, and, with a presentiment that some crisis was approaching, bade the maid show him up.

She heard his step on every stair, and was glad of the growing dusk to hide her face; the day when he first came six years ago and saw her in that very room in the spring sunshine, returned to her mind with all its overwhelming associations. She could not remain still, but rose from her seat; it seemed as if she would have herself in better control standing than sitting.

So he came in and found her standing on the rug with the firelight upon her, and something in her face not easy to describe, though she received him calmly, saying that she was surprised to see him, having supposed him to be on the Continent.

"I wished to see you alone," he said, with an air that impressed her and inspired her with dim foreboding. "I have something to tell you that will surprise you."

"No bad news, I hope?" she asked, faintly.

"You once asked me to tell you all that I knew of my cousin's disappearance," he continued. "I could not do so then. I can now. I believed that you loved him, Alice, and that is how I interpreted your reason for refusing me. What happened on that afternoon, you said, made it impossible for you ever to marry.'

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"But I am going to be married," she urged in a faint voice. "You are engaged to be married," he corrected, “and perhaps you do not care to know what happened on that afternoon. But you must know. It is Paul's wish. He is still living. He sends you a message, and a letter."

"Paul? Paul? not dead? Oh, no!" she cried, passing her hand before her eyes as if to clear away the mist rising before them. "What does this mean?"

"He is not dead. I have found him," continued Edward; "he has told me all-all that passed between you."

Alice trembled and looked at him appealingly. Why did he come thus to trouble her peace, and why did he speak in that hard voice? It seemed as if he was there to judge her.

"Stay," she replied, "I know more than you think. I heard you talking. I was under the trees when you passed. You made Gervase promise not to tell what had occurred, especially not to tell me.'

"Do you know why I wished you not to know?" he asked, almost fiercely. "I wished to spare you. I thought you loved that poor fellow. I was told 80."

"What I felt then is now of no consequence," returned Alice coldly. "But since I asked you to tell me what you knew of that unfortunate affair, I must certainly listen."

"Thank you. In the meantime I will deliver Paul's letter to you. Perhaps when you have read it you will think that my story is unnecessary."

Alice took the letter with a shaking hand, and though it was now too dark to read it, she made out the superscription in the once-familiar hand by the firelight, and trembled very violently. "It is terrible," she faltered, "to read a letter from one you have so long thought dead."

"It will be better to read it, nevertheless," he replied remorselessly. Then, seeing a taper on the writing-table he lighted it, placed it near the trembling, agitated woman, and withdrew to the other side of the room, looking out of the window into the gathering night-the window in which he had first seen her.

Alice was a long time reading that letter, though it was not very lengthy, and was written and worded clearly enough. The garden and the down beyond it sank into deeper and deeper shadow while she read; the trees lapsed into solid, black masses; a stray, wan star, peeped here and there through rents in the flying clouds, and then a watery moon rose, and transfused the black shapes with changing glory.

The silence deepened, the hall clock ticked steadily through it. Edward continued motionless at the window, Alice motionless in her chair at the table, some coals fell together in the grate, a bright flame leapt up and cast its fitful radiance over the room, and over the two silent figures; Sibyl's cat stirred comfortably in her slumber by the fire, and gave herself a cozy hug. Alice wished almost that she had never been born.

At last she spoke, and there was some leaven of contrition, some air of a convicted offender in her manner.