an embodiment in stucco of Mrs. Grundy and Jeremiah
Pixley, that he forbore and went on his melancholy way.

First, to his rooms again, to see if by chance the letter had come in
his absence. Then, as it had not, to Lady Elspeth Gordon's for old
Hamish's latest news, which, in a letter from his wife, was
satisfactory as far as it went, but pointed to a protracted stay. And
then, with stern resolution, up to Baker Street and away by train to
Chesham, for a long day's tramp through the Buckingham hills and
dales, by Chenies to Chorley Wood and Rickmansworth, so to weary the
body that the wearier brain should get some rest that night.

The sweet soft air and sunshine, the leisurely life of the villages,
and the cheerful unfoldings of the spring, in wood and field and
hedgerow, brought him to a more hopeful frame of mind. Every sparrow
twittered hope. The thrushes and young blackbirds fluted it
melodiously. It was impossible to remain unhopeful in such goodly
company. Something unexpected, accidental, untoward, had prevented
Margaret replying to his letter. Time would clear it up and set him
wondering at his lapse from fullest faith.

Also--he would risk even further rebuff. He would write again, and
this time he would trust no precarious and problematical post-office.
He would drop his letter into the Pixley letter-box himself, and so be
sure that it got there.

If then no answer,--to the winds with Mrs. Grundy and all her coils
and conventions! He would call and see Margaret himself, and learn
from her own eyes and face and lips how matters stood, and Mrs. Grundy
might dance and scream on the step outside until she grew tired of the
exercise.

There was joy and hope in action once more. Patient waiting on
slowly-dying Hope is surely the direst moral and mental torture to
which poor humanity can be subjected. That is where woman
pre-eminently overpasses man. Woman can wait unmurmuringly on dying
Hope till the last breath is gone, then silently take up her burden
and go on her way--or, if the strain has been too great, fold quiet
hands on quiet heart and follow her dead hopes into the living hope
beyond. Man must aye be doing--and as often as not, such natural
judgment as he possesses being warped and jangled by the strain of
waiting, he succeeds only in making matters worse and a more complete
fool of himself.

To be writing to Margaret again was to be living in hope once more.

If nothing came of this, he would