lends to its acute reaction.

A sudden sharp crack and rustling, coming from out the gloom of the
trees, startled them.

"Ho!" shouted the American. "Stand! Is there any one there?"

And Alec in his heart called him a fool for his pains, and yet he
himself had not been less startled. Nothing more was heard. It was only
that time--time, that mysterious medium through which circumstance comes
to us from the source of being; that river which, unseen, unfelt,
unheard, flows onward everywhere--had just then brought the moment for
some dead branch to fall.


END OF BOOK II.




BOOK III.

"_Nothing is inexorable but Love_."




CHAPTER I.