, fostering it through
the dreary night watches, until the image of Kate Alden became a
Star-in-the-East to him, beckoning towards London. When the end came,
David found himself the possessor of a moderate fortune; and with the
humiliating knowledge that this legacy awoke his first feeling of
gratitude towards his uncle, he locked the door of the _chalet_, and
so landed at Charing Cross one wet November evening. Meanwhile the
locket had never come.

* * * * *

After Hilton had left, Mrs. Branscome's forced indifference gave way.
As she crouched beside the fire, numbed by pain beyond the power of
thought, she could conjure up but one memory--the morning of their
first meeting. She recollected that the sun had just risen over the
shoulder of the Shreckhorn, and how it had seemed to her young fancy
that David had come to her straight from the heart of it. The sound of
her husband's step in the hall brought her with a shock to facts. "He
must go back," she muttered, "he must go back."

David, however, harboured no such design. One phrase of hers had
struck root in his thoughts. "I had to marry," she had said, and
certain failings in her voice warned him that this, whatever it
meant, was in her eyes the truth. It had given the lie direct to the
flippancy which she had assumed, and David determined to remain until
he had fathomed its innermost meaning. A fear, indeed, lest the one
single faith he felt as real should crumble to ashes made his resolve
almost an instinct of self-preservation. The idea of accepting the
situation never occurred to him, his training having effectually
prevented any growth of respect for the _status quo_ as such. Nor did
he realise at this time that his determination might perhaps prove
unfair to Mrs. Branscome. A certain habit of abstraction, nurtured in
him by the spirit of inquiry which he had imbibed from his books, had
become so intuitive as to penetrate even into his passion. From the
first he had been accustomed to watch his increasing intimacy with
Kate Alden from the standpoint of a third person, analysing her
actions and feelings no less than his own. And now this tendency gave
the crowning impetus to a resolve which sprang originally from his
necessity to find sure foothold somewhere amid the wreckage of his
hopes.

From this period might be dated the real commencement of Hilton's
education. He returned to the Branscomes' house, sedulously schooled
his