It was characteristic of both Pleasance and her father-and particularly characteristic of the latter-that when they met at breakfast next morning they ignored the trouble which had seemed so overwhelming at midnight. The doctor was constitutionally careless. It was his nature to live from day to day, plucking the flowers beside his path, without giving thought to the direction in which the path was leading him. Pleasance was careless too, but with a difference. She did not shut her eyes to the prospect; but she was young and sanguine, and she was confident-of a morning at any rate-that a way of escape would be found. So the doctor gazed through the window as cheerfully as if his title-deeds had been his own; and if Pleasance felt any misgivings, they related rather to the man lying in the next room than to her own case.

"How is he, father?" she asked. "Have you been kept awake much?" The doctor had spent the night on a sofa in order that he might be near the stranger.

"He is not conscious," Doctor Partridge answered, "but I think that the brain is recovering from the shock, and if all goes well he will come to himself in a few hours." Pleasance shuddered. Her father, without noticing it, went on: "But he ought not to be left alone, and I must see my patients. It is useless to ask the servants to stay with him-they are as nervous as hares. So you must sit with him for an hour or two after breakfast, Pleasance. There is no help for it."

"I?" she said.

"Yes, to be sure; why not?" he answered lightly. "You are not afraid, I suppose? There is nothing to be done, and Daniel can be within call."

She gulped down her fears and assented. She was a good girl, though she could not keep the housekeeping bills-nor her own bills, for the matter of that-within bounds. She was used to a lonely life-Sheffield lay nine miles away, and there were few neighbours on the moorland; and her nerves had been braced by many a long ramble over the ling and bracken, where the hill sheep were her only companions.

Yet she might have answered otherwise had she known that, while the words were on her father's lips, he questioned the wisdom of his proposal. The man might on coming to his senses-the doctor did not think he would-but he might repeat his attempt. And then-

Her answer, however, clenched the matter. When they rose from breakfast the doctor said, "Now my dear, come, and I will put you in charge."

She followed him. It was a relief to her to discover-from the threshold of the room-that the bed had been moved, so that the light might not fall on the patient's face. In its new position a curtain hid him. The doctor set a chair for her behind the curtain, and she sat down outwardly calm, inwardly trembling. He went himself to the bedside, and stood for a moment gazing with a critical eye. Then he nodded to her and went softly out.

He left the door ajar, and she heard him ride away. She heard too Daniel's clumsy footsteps as he came back through the house, and the clatter of the china as Mary washed it in the kitchen. But these homely sounds served only to heighten her dislike for her task. She was not afraid. She no longer trembled. But she shrank almost with loathing from contact with her wretched companion. She conjured up a dreadful picture of him-ghastly and disfigured-defiant and hopeless-self-doomed.

He lay perfectly still. The curtain too on which her eyes dwelt hung motionless. And presently there began to grow upon her a feeling and a fear that he was dead. She fought with it, and more than once shook it off. But it returned. At length she could bear it no longer, and she rose in the silence, her breath coming quickly. She took a step towards the bed, paused, stepped on, and stood where her father had stood.

"Water!"

Before the faintly whispered word had ceased to sound she was halfway to the carafe. Where was the loathing now? She brought a little water in the tumbler, and held it to his lips. "Do not speak again," she said softly. "You are in good hands. The doctor will return in a few minutes."

She watched the weary dazed eyes close; then she went back to her chair as though she had been a trained nurse and this the most ordinary case in the world. But she was immensely puzzled. The picture of the patient as he really was remained with her, causing her to wonder exceedingly how such a man had come to attempt his life. The face handsome despite its bandages and pallor, the eyes kindly even in stupor, were features the very opposite of those which she had ascribed to the dark creature of her fancy.

When her father returned she flew to tell him what had happened. He entered and saw the patient, and came out again. "Yes," he said in his professional tone, "if he can be kept quiet for forty-eight hours he will do. Fever is the only thing to be feared. But he must not be left alone, and I have to go to Ashopton. Do you mind being with him?"

"Not at all."

This time the easy-going doctor did not hesitate. He muttered something about Daniel being within call, and, snatching a hasty meal, got to horse again.

The case at Ashopton proved to be serious. It led to complications, and even to a consultation with a London physician. And so it happened that that day, and the next, and the next, Pleasance was left in charge at home. The stranger, as his senses returned to him-and with them Heaven knows what thoughts of the past and the future, what thankfulness or remorse-grew accustomed to look to her hands for tendance. A woman can scarcely perform such offices without pitying the object of them; and Pleasance after the first morning came to wait upon the stranger's call and minister to his wants without the disturbing remembrance that his own act had brought him to this. Away from the bedside she shuddered; beside it she forgot. In the mean time the tall gentleman, who at first lay gazing upwards, taciturn and still, came more and more to follow her with his eyes as she moved to and fro in his service. None the less he remained grave and smileless, speaking little even when he began to sit up, and saying nothing from which the current of his thoughts could be judged.

"Father," she said one morning, when they had gone on in this way for several days, "do you think that he is quite sane?"

"Sane? yes, as sane as any of us," was the uncompromising answer. "Indeed," the doctor continued, looking at her sharply, "more sane than you will be if you stop in the house so much, my girl. Leave him to himself this morning and go out. Walk till lunch."

She assented, and, the weather being soft and bright, she started in excellent spirits. As she climbed she thought that the moorland had never looked more beautiful, the distance more full of colour. But this mood proved less lasting than the May weather. Reaching the brow of the hill, she turned to look down on the Old Hall, and the sudden reflection that it must pass to strangers fell on her like a cold shadow. The tears rushed to her eyes, the walk was spoiled. She came back early, wondering at her own depression.

As she emerged from the shrubbery she saw with surprise two figures standing on the lawn. One was her father. The other-could it be Edgar Woolley come back before his time? No; this man was taller and paler, with an air of distinction which the surgeon lacked. She drew near, and her father, not seeing her, went into the house; while the other sank into an arm-chair which had been set for him, and turned and saw her. He rose with an effort, and raised his hat as she approached. It was the tall gentleman.

The fact annoyed the girl. It was one thing, she thought, to nurse him when he lay helpless, another to associate with him. She made up her mind to pass him with a frigid bow. But at the last moment the sight of his weakness melted her, and she paused on the threshold to tell him that she was glad to see him out.

"Thank you," he answered. He spoke very quietly; but a slight flush came and went on his brow. Probably he understood her hesitation.

Within doors a fresh surprise awaited her. She found the table laid for lunch, and laid for three. "Father!" she cried, in a tone of vexation, "is he going to take his meals with us?"

"Where else is he to take them?" the doctor answered gruffly, looking up from the old bureau at which he was writing. "Would you send him to the servants? If he is left alone in his room, he will go mad in earnest."

He spoke gruffly because he knew he was wrong. He knew no more of the tall gentleman, or of his reason for doing what he had done, than he knew of the man in the moon. That the stranger dressed and spoke like a gentleman, that there was no mark on his linen, that he had a watch and money in his pockets, and that he had tried to take his life-this was the sum of the doctor's knowledge; and he could not feel that these matters rendered the stranger a fit companion for his daughter. But the doctor had not strength of mind to grapple with the difficulty, and he let things slide.

Pleasance would not discuss the question, but at the meal she sat silent and cold. The doctor was uncomfortable, and talked jerkily. A shadow-but it seemed more than temporary-darkened the stranger's face. At the earliest possible moment Pleasance withdrew.

When she came down she found that the tall gentleman had retired to his room, and she saw nothing more of him that evening. Next day, the post brought a letter from Woolley, postponing his return for a day or two, and this sent the doctor on his rounds in high spirits. Pleasance herself, moving upstairs about her domestic business, felt more charitable. There might be something in what her father said about leaving the poor man to himself. She would go down presently, and talk to him, preserving a due distance.

She had scarcely made up her mind to this when she chanced to look through the window, and saw the stranger walking slowly across the lawn. She watched him for a moment in idle curiosity, wondering in what class he had moved, and what had brought him to this. Then she noticed the direction he was taking, and on the instant a dreadful fear flashed into the girl's mind, and made her heart stand still. Below the lawn the rivulet formed a pool among the trees He was going that way, glancing sombrely about him as he went.

Pleasance did not stay to think-to add up the chances. She flung the door open, and ran down the stairs. She reached the lawn. He was not to be seen, but she knew which way he had gone, and she darted down the path that led to the water. She turned the corner-she saw him! He was standing gazing into the dark pool, his back towards her, in an attitude of profound melancholy. She ran on unfaltering until she reached him, and laid her hand on his arm.

"What are you doing?" she cried, on the impulse of her great fear.

He turned with a violent start, and found the girl's pale face and glowing eyes close to his. He looked ghastly enough. There was a bandage round his head, under the soft hat which the doctor had lent him; and in the surprise of the moment the colour had fled from his face. "Doing?" he muttered, trembling in her grasp. And his eyes dilated-his nerves were still suffering from the shock of his wound, and probably from some long strain which had preceded it. "Doing? Yes, I understand you."

He uttered the last words with a groan and a distortion of the features. "Come away!" she cried, pulling at his arm.

He let her lead him away. He was so weak that apparently he could not have returned without her help. Near the upper end of the walk there was a rustic seat, and here he signed to her to let him sit down, and she did so. When he had somewhat recovered himself he said faintly, "You are mistaken; I came here by chance."

She shook her head, looking down at him solemnly. She was still excited, taken out of herself by her terror.

"It is true," he said feebly. "I swear it."

"Swear that you will not think of it again," she responded.

"I swear," he answered.

She gazed at him awhile. Then she said, "Wait!" She went quickly back to the house, and returned with some wine. "Perhaps I startled you without cause," she said, smiling on him. He had not seen her smile before. "I must make amends. Drink this."

He obeyed. "Now," she said, "you must take my arm and go back to your chair."

He assented as a child might, and when he reached the chair he sank into it with a sigh of relief. She stood beside him. The back of his seat was towards the house, and before him an opening in the shrubbery disclosed a shoulder of the ravine rolling upwards, the gorse on one rugged spur in bloom, the sunshine everywhere warming the dull browns and lurking purples into brilliance.

"See!" she said, with an undertone of reproach in her voice, "is not that beautiful? Is not that a thing one would regret?"

"Yes, beautiful now," he replied, answering her thought rather than her words. "But I have seen it under another aspect. Stay!" he continued, seeing she was about to answer. "Do not judge me too hastily. You cannot tell what reason I had-what-"

"No!" she retorted, "I cannot. But I can guess what grief you would have caused to others, what a burden you would have shifted to weaker shoulders, what duties you would have avoided, what a pang you would have inflicted on friends and relations! For shame!" She stopped for lack of breath.

"I have no relatives," he answered slowly, "and few friends. I have no duties that others would not perform as well. My death would cause sorrow to some, joy to as many. My burden would die with me."

She glanced at him with compressed lips, divining that he was reciting arguments he had used a score of times to his own conscience. But she was puzzled how to answer him. "Take all that for granted," she said at last. "Are there no reasons higher than these which should have deterred you?"

"It may be so," he replied. "Perhaps I think so now."

She felt the admission a victory, and, seeing he had recovered his composure, she left him and went into the house. But the incident had one lasting effect. It broke down the wall between them. She felt that she knew him well-better than many whom she had owned as acquaintances for years. The confidence surprised in a moment of emotion cannot be recalled. It seemed idle for her to affect to keep him at arm's length when she knew, if she did not acknowledge, that he had confessed his sin, and been forgiven.

So when she saw him walking feebly from the house next day she went with him, and showed him where he could rest and where obtain a view without climbing. Afterwards she fell naturally into the habit of going with him; and little by little, as she saw more of him, she owned the spell of a new perplexity. Who was he? He talked of things in a tone novel to her. He seemed to have thought deeply and read much. He spoke of visits to this country, to that country. One day her father found him reading their day-old

Times

, and took it from him. "You must not do that yet," the doctor said. "My daughter can read to you, if you like, but not for long."

She asked what she should read. He chose a review of a historical work, and gently rejected the passing topics-even a speech by Lord Hartington. This gave her an idea, and she privately searched the back numbers of the paper, but could not find that any one who resembled him was missing. Yet he had been with them almost three weeks; he had received no letters, he had sent none. How could such a man pass from his circle and cause no inquiry? Here at the Old Hall they knew no more of him than on his coming. He had not offered to disclose his name, and his host, who had fallen under his spell, had not plucked up courage to ask for it, or for an explanation-had come, indeed, to no understanding with him at all.

It is possible that of himself the doctor might have gone on unsuspicious to the last. But one afternoon, as he made up his books at the old bureau in the hall-the door being open and a flood of sunshine pouring through it-he was aware on a sudden of a shadow cast across the boards. He looked up. A middle-sized fair man, with a goatee beard and a fresh complexion, was setting down a bag on the floor and beginning to take off his gloves. "Why, Woolley!" exclaimed the doctor, gazing at him feebly, "is it you? We did not expect you until Monday."

"No, but you see I have come to-day," the traveller answered. It was a peculiarity of this young man-he was not very young, say thirty-eight-that when he was not well pleased he smiled. He smiled now.

The doctor rubbed his hands to hide a little embarrassment. "Yes, I see you have come," he said. "But how? Did you walk from Sheffield?"

"I came with Nickson."

The doctor stopped rubbing, then went on faster, as his thoughts flew from Nickson to the tall gentleman, and for some mysterious reason from the tall gentleman to Pleasance. He had never consciously traced this connection before, but something in his assistant's face helped him to it now.

"He tells me," Woolley continued, making a neat ball of his gloves and smiling at the floor, "that you had a strange case here, a case he was mixed up with, and that you made a cure of it."

"Yes."

"The fellow has cleared out, I suppose?"

"Well, no," the doctor stammered, feeling warm. How odd it was that he had never seen into what a pit of imprudence he was sinking! He had been harbouring a lunatic, or one who had acted as a lunatic-a criminal certainly; in no light a person fit to associate with his daughter. "No, he is still here," he stammered. "I think-I suppose he will be leaving in a day or two!"

"Here still, is he?" Woolley said with a sneer. "A queer sort of parlour-boarder, sir. May I ask where he is at present?"

"I think he is out of doors somewhere."

"Alone?"

When the doctor thought over the scene afterwards he whistled when his memory brought him to that "Alone." He knew then that the fat was in the fire. He saw that Woolley had pumped the carrier-who had been to the house several times since the affair-and drawn his own conclusions. "I rather think," he ventured, "I am not sure, but I think-"

"I do not think," the other said dryly, "I see."

He pointed through the open door, and alas! the tall gentleman and Pleasance were visible approaching the house. They had that moment emerged from the shrubbery, and were crossing the lawn. The girl was carrying a basket full of marsh marigolds, the man had a great bush of hawthorn on the end of his stick. They were both looking at the front of the house without a thought that other eyes were upon them. Pleasance's face, on which the light fell strongly, was far from gay, her smile but a sad one; yet there was a tenderness in the one and the other which was not calculated to reassure a jealous onlooker.

"So!" Woolley muttered, his fingers closing like a vise on the doctor's arm. "Let me deal with this."

CHAPTER III

The walk which roused so much indignation in Edgar Woolley's breast had been one of more than common interest; as perhaps something in the faces of the returning couple assured him. There is a point in the journey towards intimacy at which one or other of the converging pair turns the conversation inwards, disclosing his or her hopes, fears, ambitions. Pleasance in the purest innocence had reached this stage to-day; arriving at it by the road of that silence which is tolerable only when some progress has been made towards friendship, and which even then invites attack. The tall gentleman, having lopped and picked at her bidding, gathered up the last scraps of the hawthorn which he had ruthlessly broken from the tree. He turned to find his companion gazing into distance with a shadow on her face. "Your thoughts are not pleasant ones, I fear," he said, half lightly, half seriously. "A penny were too much for them."

"I was thinking of Mr. Woolley," she answered simply.

"Indeed!" he said, surprised. He was more surprised when she poured out of a full heart the story of her father's debt to his assistant, and of the mortgage on the old house which the Partridges had owned for generations, and which was to her father as the apple of his eye. She let fall no word of Woolley's position in regard to herself. But the voice has subtle inflections, and men's apprehensions are quick where they are interested-and he was interested here. Her story omitted little which he could not conjecture.

"I am sorry to hear this," he said, after a pause. "But money troubles-after all, money troubles are not the worst troubles." He raised his hat and walked for a moment bareheaded.

"But this is not merely a money trouble," she answered warmly. She was wrapped up in her own distresses, and did not perceive at the moment that he had reverted to his. "We shall lose

that

They had reached the crown of the hill, and as she spoke she pointed to the Old Hall lying below them, its four gables, its stone front, its mullioned windows warmed into beauty by lichens and sunlight. "We shall lose that!" she repeated, pointing to it.

"Yes," the stranger said, with a quick glance at her. "I understand. And I do not wonder that it grieves you. It has always been your home, I suppose?" She nodded. "And your father thinks it must go?" he continued, after a pause given to deep thought, as it seemed.

"He thinks so."

"Something should be done!" he replied, in a tone of decision. "I conclude from what you say that Mr. Woolley is pressing for his money?"

She nodded again. Her eyes were full of tears, which the sight of the house had brought to them, and she could not trust herself to speak. His sympathy seemed natural to her, so that she saw nothing at this minute strange in his position. She forgot that only a few days or weeks earlier he had been in the blackness of despair himself. He talked now as if he could help others!

They were close to the house, and he had referred to the mouldering shield over the doorway, and she was telling its story when she checked herself and stood still. Edgar Woolley had emerged, and was standing before them with a flush of triumph on his check. The tall gentleman could scarcely be in doubt who he was; nor could Woolley well take Pleasance's involuntary cry for a sign of gladness-though he strove to force the smile which was habitual to him.

"Miss Pleasance," he said, "will you step inside? Your father is asking for you."

"Where is he?" she asked. He had used no form of greeting, neither did she. Something-perhaps not the same thing in each-was at work, kindling the one against the other.

"He is in the hall," he answered, chafing at her delay.

She turned to her companion. "I will take your flowers in, if you please," she said. She held out her arms as she spoke, and he laid the pile in them, Woolley looking on the while. The assistant's gaze was bent on her, and he did not see what she saw-that some strong emotion was distorting the tall gentleman's face. He turned a livid white, his nostrils twitched, and a little pulse in his cheek beat wildly.

She changed her mind, seeing that. "No, do you take them in," she said. "Will you take them in, please?" she repeated peremptorily; and she pushed the hawthorn into his arms, and held out her basket. The stranger took the things with reluctance, but without demur, and went into the house.

"Now," she said, turning rapidly upon Woolley, "what do you want?"

"My answer?" he retorted, with answering curtness.

A second before he had not intended to say that. He had meant to carry the war into the stranger's country. But his temper mastered him for a second, and he found himself staking all, when he had planned an affair of outposts. "Wait, Miss Pleasance," he added desperately, seeing in a moment what he had done, and that he had committed himself. "I beg you not to give it me without thought-without thought of others, of me, of your father, as well as of yourself! Do not judge me hastily! Do not judge me," he continued passionately, for her face was icy, "by myself as I am now, Pleasance, wild with love of you, but-"

"By what then, Mr. Woolley?" she asked, her lip curling. "By what am I to judge you if not by yourself?"

"By-"

"Well?" she said mercilessly. He had paused. He could not find words. In truth, he had made a mistake. If he had ever had a chance of winning her his chance was gone now; and, recognising this, he let his fury grow to such a pitch that he could not wait for the answer he had requested. He was mad with love of her, with rage at his own mistake, with shame at being so outgeneralled. "I will tell you, Miss Partridge!" he cried, his eyes sparkling with passion; "Judge me by the future! That fellow who was with you, do you know who he is? Do you know that I can put him in gaol any day? – ay, in goal!"

"What has he done?" she asked. "Tell me."

It was a pity he could not say, "He is a thief-a forger-a swindler!" The charge he could bring against the stranger was heavy enough; and yet he found it difficult to word it so that it should seem heavy. "You thought he was shot?" he said at last. "Bah! he shot himself."

"I know it," she answered, without the movement of a muscle.

He stared at her. How was it? he wondered. Before his departure he had been the Old Hall's master. He had wound the poor doctor round his finger, and Pleasance had been civil to him at least. Now all this was altered. And why? "Ah, well! He shall go to gaol, d-n him!" he said, putting his conclusion into words. "He shall go to gaol! and if you have a fancy for him you must go there to see him!"

She lost her self-possession under the insult, and her face turned scarlet. "You coward!" she said, with scorn. "You would not dare to say to his face what you have said behind his back. Let me pass!"

She swept into the house and left him standing in the sunlight. As she hurried through the hall, which to her dazzled eyes seemed dusky, she caught a glimpse of the tall gentleman leaning over the bureau with his back to her. Had he heard? The door was open, and so was one window. She could not be sure, but the suspicion was enough. Her face was on fire as she ran up the stairs. How she hated, oh, how she hated that wretch out there! She thought that she had never known before what it was to hate.

For there was something in what he had said. There was the sting. How had she come to be so intimate with one who had done what the tall gentleman had done? She tried to trace the stages, but she could not. Then she tried to think of him with some of the horror, some of the distaste which she had felt at the time of his arrival, when he lay ghastly and blood-stained behind the closed door. But she could not. The face we have known a year can never put on for us the look it wore when we saw it first. The hand of time does not move backward. Pleasance found this was so, and in the solitude of her own room hid her face and trembled. Could anything but evil come of such a-a friendship?

Meanwhile Woolley's state of mind was even less enviable. Hitherto his way in the world had been made by the exercise of tact and self-control; and he valued himself upon the possession of those qualities. He could not understand why they had failed him at this pinch, or why the advantage he had so far enjoyed had deserted him now. Yet the secret was not far to seek. He was jealous; and when jealousy attacks him, the man who lives by playing on the passions of others falls to the common level. Jealousy undermines his judgment as certainl