too, in general, since that night when he had wrestled with her in the
drawing-room. One moment of fresh battle between them there has been--in
the park--on the subject of old Scarsbrook. Preposterous!--that she
should think for one moment she could be allowed to confess herself--and
so bring all the low talk of the neighbourhood about her ears. He could
hear the old man's plaintive cogitations over the strange experience
which had blanched his hair and beard and brought him a visible step
nearer to his end. "Soombody towd my owd woman tudther day, Misther
Helbeck, at yoong Mason o' t' Browhead had been i' th' park that neet.
Mappen tha'll tell me it was soom gell body he'd been coortin. Noa!--he
doan't gaa about wi' the likes o' thattens! Theer was never a soun' ov
her feet, Misther Helbeck! She gaed ower t' grass like a bit cloud i'
summer, an she wor sma' an nesh as a wagtail on t' steeans. I ha seen aw
maks o' gells, but this one bet 'em aw." And after that, to think of her
pouring herself out in impetuous explanation to the old peasant and his
wife! It had needed a strong will to stop her. "Mr. Helbeck, I wish to
tell the truth, and I ought to tell it! And your arguments have no weight
with me whatever."

But he had made them prevail. And she had not punished him too severely.
A little more pallor, a little more silence for a time--that was all!

A score of poignant recollections laid hold upon him as he paced the
night away. That music in the summer dusk--the softness of her little
face--the friendliness--first, incredible friendliness!--of her lingering
hand. Next morning he had banished himself to Paris, on a Catholic
mission devised for the purpose. He had gone, torn with passion--gone, in
the spirit that drives the mystic through all the forms of self-torture
that religious history records--_ad majorem Dei gloriam_. He had returned
to find her frozen and hostile as before--all wilfulness with