with him to the old house peeping over the dyke toward the sea. He
could scarcely walk quietly, for joy at the return of his friend,
and skipped from side to side, pouring out questions and answering
them himself as children and women do.

But Barebone gave him only half of his attention and looked before
him with grave eyes, while the boy talked of nests and knives.
Barebone was looking toward the garden, concealed like an
intrenchment behind the dyke. It was a quiet evening, and the
rector was walking slowly backward and forward on the raised path,
made on the dyke itself, like a ship-captain on his quarter-deck,
with hands clasped behind his bent back and eyes that swept the
horizon at each turn with a mechanical monotony. At one end of the
path, which was worn smooth by the Reverend Septimus Marvin's
pensive foot, the gleam of a white dress betrayed the presence of
his niece, Miriam Liston.

"Ah, is that you?" asked the rector, holding out a limp hand. "Yes.
I remember Sep was allowed to sit up till half-past eight in the
hope that you might come round to see us. Well, Loo, and how are
you? Yes--yes."

And he looked vaguely out to sea, repeating below his breath the
words "Yes--yes" almost in a whisper, as if communing secretly with
his own thoughts out of hearing of the world.

"Of course I should come round to see you," answered Barebone.
"Where else should I go? So soon as we had had tea and I could
change my clothes and get away from that dear Mrs. Clubbe. It seems
so strange to come back here from the racketing world--and France is