g the pebbles or
the sand in its cool depths. Infinite were the varyings of light and
shade, from a dazzling gleam on the middle water, to the dense
obscurity of leafy nooks. On either hand was a wood, thick with
undergrowth; great pines, spruces, and larches, red-berried rowans,
crowding on the steep sides of the ravine; trees of noble stature,
shadowing fern and flower, towering against the sunny blue. Just below
the spot where Piers and Irene rested, a great lichened hazel stretched
itself all across the beck; in the upward direction a narrowing vista,
filled with every tint of leafage, rose to the brown of the moor and
the azure of the sky. All about grew tall, fruiting grasses, and many a
bright flower; clusters of pink willow-weed, patches of yellow ragwort,
the perfumed meadowsweet, and, amid bracken and bramble, the purple
shining of a great campanula.

On the open moor, the sun blazed with parching heat; here was freshness
as of spring, the waft of cool airs, the scent of verdure moistened at
the root.

"Once upon a time," said Otway, when both had been listening to their
thoughts, "I fancied myself as unlucky a man as walked the earth. I've
got over that."

Irene did not look at him; she waited for the something else which his
voice promised.

"Think of my good fortune in meeting you this afternoon. If I had gone
to the Castle another way, I should have missed you; yet I all but did
go by the fields. And there was nothing I desired so much as to see you
somewhere--by yourself."

The slight failing of his voice at the end helped Irene to speak
collectedly.

"Chance was in my favour, too. I came down to the beck, hoping I might
meet you."

She saw his hand move, the fingers clutch together. Before he could say
anything, she continued:

"I want to tell you of an ill-natured story that has reached my ears.
Not to discuss it; I know it is untrue. Your two brothers--do you know
that they speak spitefully of you?"

"I didn't know it. I don't think I have given them cause."

"I am very sure you haven't. But I want you to know about it, and I
shall tell you the facts. After the death of my aunt, Mrs. Hannaford,
you got from the hands of Daniel Otway a packet of her letters; he
bargained with you, and you paid his price, wishing those letters to be
seen by my father and my cousin Olga, whose minds they would set at
rest. Now, Daniel Otway is telling people that you never paid the sum
you promised him, and