s too sanguine, but it gives me
hope to hear YOU say so."

She colored slightly, and said gravely: "We must go in now." Yet she
lingered for a moment before the door. For a long time afterward he had
a very vivid recollection of her charming face, in its childlike
gravity and its quaint frame of black crape, standing out against the
sunset-warmed wall of the rectory. "Promise me you will not mind what
these people say or do," she said suddenly.

"I promise," he returned, with a smile, "to mind only what YOU say or
do."

"But I might not be always quite right, you know," she said naively.

"I'll risk that."

"Then, when we go in now, don't talk much to me, but make yourself
agreeable to all the others, and then go straight home to the inn, and
don't come here until after the funeral."

The faintest evasive glint of mischievousness in her withdrawn eyes at
this moment mitigated the austerity of her command as they both passed
in.

Randolph had intended not to return to London until after the funeral,
two days later, and spent the interesting day at the neighboring town,
whence he dispatched his exploring and perhaps hopeless letter to
the captain. The funeral was a large and imposing one, and impressed
Randolph for the first time with the local importance and solid
standing of the Dorntons. All the magnates and old county families were
represented. The inn yard and the streets of the little village were
filled with their quaint liveries, crested paneled carriages, and
silver-cipher caparisoned horses, with a sprinkling of fashion from
London. He could not close his ears to the gossip of the villagers
regarding the suddenness of the late baronet's death, the extinction of
the title, the accession of the orphaned girl to the property, and even,
to his greater exasperation, speculations upon her future and probable
marriage. "Some o' they gay chaps from Lunnon will be lordin' it over
the Hall afore long," was the comment of the hostler.

It was with some little bitterness that Randolph took his seat in the
crowded church. But this feeling, and even his attempts to discover Miss
Eversleigh's face in the stately family pew fenced off from the chancel,
presently passed away. And then his mind began to be filled with strange
and weird fancies. What grim and ghostly revelations might pass between
this dead scion of the Dorntons lying on the trestles before them and
the obscure, nameless ticket of leave man awaiting his