u start
writing. I've been thinking," and perhaps more than one of them had a
fairly shrewd suspicion as to the line his thoughts had taken.

"Now, if I don't cut away and dress, and get my breakfast and clear
out, I shall be in the way of the ladies, and Mrs. Carre will never
forgive me," he said. "I do hope you will include me in your plans for
the day."

His bow included them both, and he sped off up the path through the
high hedge, with the two dogs racing alongside.

"Meg, my child, we will go for a little walk," said Miss Penny.

V

The salt Sark air is uplifting at all times. The sea-water has a crisp
effervescence of its own which tones and braces mind and body alike.
Add to these the wonder of Margaret's unexpected presence there and,
if the gift of large imagination be yours, you may possibly
arrive--within a hundred miles or so--of the state of John Graeme's
feelings as he raced up that path and bounded up the stairs of the Red
House four at a time.

He looked out of the wide-open window across the fields, while the
dogs, as usual, took the opportunity of appeasing their thirst at his
water-jug,--for water lies at the bottom of deep cool wells in Sark,
and sensible dogs take their chances when they offer.

Was this the room he had left an hour ago in the fresh of the dawn--a
man whose gray future was just beginning to lift its bruised head out
of the shadows?

Were those gleaming emerald fields the dim wastes he had sped across
with his dumb companion, feeling as friendly towards him as towards
anything on earth?

Were those trees over there, with the glow of spring-gold in their
tender green leaves, the gloomy guardians of the churchyard where
ghosts walked of a night?

Was that streak of blue away beyond the uplands, with the purple film
along its rim, only the sea and a hint of Jersey, or was it a glimpse
of heaven?

Was he, in very truth, that John Graeme who, for thirty days past, had
been striving with all his might to root the thought of Margaret
Brandt out of his life--and succeeding not at all?

It was the face of a stranger--a stranger with new joy of life in his
sparkling eyes--that looked back at him out of the glass, as he plied
his brushes, and tied his neck-tie with a careful assiduity to which
the John Graeme of the past thirty days had been a stranger indeed.

It was amazing. It was almost past belief. Yet this was himself, and
there was the gap in the dark hedge--never da