It seemed to Dan, as he sped out across the moor, that he heard the sound of derisive laughter echoing after him. He hurried blindly on, his mind struggling with a confused mass of thought. At last he flung himself down. Below him lay the farm, with its heavy thatched roof and red brick outbuildings. The light from the setting sun fell on the stacks of corn; the rooks flew from the elm-trees out across the freshly ploughed fields, where a lilac haze lay on the maroon-coloured soil.

"What call had her to steal? What call had her to bring shame on me and her?" he exclaimed with a rough sob. "Folks 'ull never forget it, and her has made me a fool before 'em all."

He looked across the undulating moor at the little farm below: his uncle had no children, and the farm would, in due course, descend to him. Dan had been secretly proud of his position as his uncle's heir; now it seemed that he could never rejoice in himself and his lot again: this was hard, because Dan had capacity for self-appreciation. There was a subtle irony in the fact that Phoebe, to whom he had always behaved with quixotic consideration, should have shattered his happiness.

Phoebe was the daughter of the village carpenter, and from a worldly point of view had everything to gain by a marriage with Dan; and though he had re

frained from pressing the fact upon her notice, he could not but be aware there was something generous on his part in thus abstaining. There were moments when he wondered if Phoebe quite saw the matter in the same light as he did; in some things she had proved herself strangely obtuse. His uncle had opposed the engagement, and now, lying on the moor, Dan recalled the afternoon when he had first broken the knowledge of this to Phoebe : he remembered the generous warmth with which he had exclaimed :

"Come what will,

sweetheart, I'll stick by you!" and the flatness with which her reply had fallen on him: "Ay, Dan, and I'll do the same by 'ee."

It had come home to him with a keen pang that there was something lacking in Phoebe, an inability to see things as others saw them. For a few days his manner to her had been colder: as usual she had misunderstood the reason of the change, and instead of enlarging her view of him, she wept many bitter tears, totally failing to see anything but his displeasure; so that at last, from mere weariness, he had been compelled to take her back again into favour. Then, with the provoking illogicalness of her sex, she forgot, in the joy of being pardoned, that she had originally given cause for offence; and he would have endeavoured there and then to clarify her

vision of things, if he had not found an unexpected difficulty in defining her misdemeanour in words.

It had been after one of these dissensions that he had determined upon enlisting: he felt that absence from home would enable Phoebe to weigh his value in a juster balance, and at the same time afford him an excellent opportunity of seeing something of the world. He had, however, soon wearied of barrack life; a touch of fever cured his desire for roving, and when later he learned that the regiment had been ordered to hold itself in readiness for service in India, he had been possessed with a sudden overwhelming terror of what might be in store for him in that land, where men died weird deaths at short shrift. Under the influence of this feeling he had written the letter to Phoebe, the result of which he had come to regret so bitterly.

"'Tis just like a maid to reckon that there iddn't any thing shameful in stealing," he burst out. "Happen her thought that if I came back home, nothing else mattered."

His face softened: "Her's more child than woman,' he added. Rising impulsively, he ran to a spot where, screened from observation by the tall bracken, he obtained a view of what passed on the road. Before him the hill broke away precipitately, and as he flung himself down in the fern, he heard the distant crunch of wheels. His heart quickened a beat; in spite of his anger, the thought of Phoebe's near approach sent

a curious thrill of pleasure through him. The cart came slowly into view : her head was turned in his direction; his heart thrilled again at the sight of her small, oval, tearstained face; the childish, curving mouth a little open, and the eyes a lapis-lazuli blue that stared sadly out from beneath the dark brows at a dreary world. The driver had withdrawn as far as possible from her, and Phoebe, realising his distaste, had crushed herself back into the corner of the cart. Above and around her the moor swept out its lonely length, the little figure seeming to accent the general loneliness. A wave of compassionate love rushed through Dan : spinging to his feet, he went to meet her.

"Phoebe!" he cried; "I've come back; you ain't alone!" A great joy remodelled her face; instant, absolute, the metamorphosis was but one of those changes in her that Dan knew so well and found so illogical. It was as if she had entered into a new heaven and a new earth; as if, at sound of trump, a dead joy had sprung into life eternal.

"Dan!" she said; "Dan!" He smiled in spite of himself; but his voice had a vexed sound as he answered 66 Things iddn't mended right off like that."

Admonition was thrown away upon Phoebe; for her the sun shone full or not at all.

Realising this anew, a feeling of helplessness fell upon Dan: he looked away from her across the moor. "Ay," he

repeated to himself, "things iddn't mended right off the same as that."

The driver glanced curiously at them both. "Dang me!" he exclaimed, "but this is a queer start. I reckon old Farmer Pigott will have a spoke to put in the wheel."

Dan flushed; for the moment he had forgotten everything but Phoebe's interests: the driver's remark recalled him to his own; and it occurred to him that he had acted with considerable lack of foresight.

"I will be down to see your uncle soon," he exclaimed; and with a brief nod to the driver, he moved away in the direction of the farm.

Night had almost fallen; a

grey mist rolled up across the moor, and the wind rising, blew through a group of pollard thorn with a thin, spun-out wail. Dan halted and glanced back-the cart was no longer in sight.

"Her's so dependsome on me," he said; "and I have a sort o' feeling as if I should fail her."

The moon trod slowly out from behind the clouds: lifting his eyes, Dan sent winging through the great grey space a prayer to God.

"O God Almighty!" he exclaimed, "that I mayn't act cowardful this once."

It was the first prayer he had uttered since childhood: it comforted him.

he exclaimed.

Dan winced. "I don't know what you mean," he answered. "Mean!" repeated the old man. "Where did you get the money to buy your discharge? -that be what I mean."

There was a long pause, during which Dan sought vainly to put the truth into words: it seemed to him that never had he striven harder to state the facts and nothing but the facts; and then, suddenly, as if in a dream he heard himself

say, "I won the money on a horse."

He rubbed his sleeve across his forehead, a dazed wonderment taking possession of him. He had so desired to speak the truth, surely he could not be held responsible for a lie he had never meant to utter? There was time still to rectify the mistake in a moment, he told himself, he would rectify it; but the minutes crept on and he did not speak, the words I would not come.

"By the Lord!" the old farmer burst out at last, "if I don't believe you whinnied that poor little maid into stealing it for 'ee. I turned her out; and if I find you've lied, dang me if I won't neck and crop you after her!"

wrung afresh. For а brief

moment manliness returned to him; devoid of fear, he saw into the future.

"There be something else I must tell you," he said. Raising his eyes, he met those of Samuel Pigott fixed upon him; they seemed to probe deep down into his nature and draw all that was despicable in it to the surface. The words that he had meant to utter forsook his lips.

"I'm sorry I came back along home," he exclaimed, huskily. Farmer Pigott burst into a rough laugh. "You "You would always have been afraid o' sommat, Dan, wherever you might be," he answered. "If 'tiddn't the fever, 'tis what's as bad."

There sprang up in Dan's heart a sudden hatred of this man, who seemed in some subtle fashion to force him to play a coward's part. Glancing hurriedly back on the long page of his boyhood, he saw the same rôle assigned to both, and a quick anger flamed up within him.

"I could curse you for making me the cur that I be,” he exclaimed. For a brief moment his eyes met his uncle's on equal terms; then his anger died down, and he turned away with what sounded much like a rough sob.

There was little conversation at supper that evening. From time to time Mrs Pigott heaped some special dainty on to Dan's plate; but he seemed to have little appetite. Old Abel Finch, who was allowed to dine at the

same table, cast an envious glance at the untasted food. "Zims as how soldiering daintifies a man!" he exclaimed at last. "Things must have changed a deal from what they wor in my father's time-they fed 'em on soup or some such in they days-many's the time I've heard him tell how 'twor bones for one and water for t'other; but the broth it bided long o' the cook. Eh!" he added, pushing his chair slowly back, and turning to Dan: "I'll be bound you've seen a deal; a man larns quick in furren parts-'tis smart begun and smart done over there, I reckon.'

"They have their good points same as here," Dan answered, a little wearily.

"I ain't for denying thic," replied the cow-hind, scratching his head. "A place takes knowing the same as a man, and the worst o' 'em ha' their good moments. Nater is a queer thing: the biggest liar than ever I layed eyes on got himself jailed to save his friend; folks said that 'twor a poor trick that 'ventiveness played him, to run dry jest when he needed the tap most --but law, a liar's fancy is but human after all is said and done."

turning towards where his nephew had been seated; but Dan had slipped away unperceived.

That night, when the others had retired to rest, Mrs Pigott knocked at her nephew's door. The moonlight shone full into the room as she entered, on her kindly face and plump person.

"I

"I've brought 'ee a drop o' gruel, lad," she said. thought may be you would lie cold the first night."

She sat down on the edge of the bed while he drank the gruel, her glance straying round the room. The sight of his fishing-rod on the wall, and the case of birds' eggs on the table, called up in her memory a vivid picture of him as a boy; then her eyes fell on him lying carelessly propped against the pillow, and she noticed with a pang that the look of boyishness had gone from his face.

"I kept your things fine and dusted," she continued in a matter-of-fact tone, "though I was forced to throw away that stuffed otter you thought such a deal of; he did smell that powerful strong."

Dan put the cup down on the chair and looked up into his aunt's comfortable red face. "You minded on me, then?" he asked.

"Ay, I minded on 'ee," she answered.

They were both silent for a while; in the room nothing stirred but the shadow of a creeper that the moonlight flung across the floor.

"This be but a poor homecoming for 'ee, lad," the old woman exclaimed at last.