understand. There may have been more than mere caprice in it.'

His eye met his friend's significantly.

'I suppose so,' said Flaxman quietly. Not even for Robert's benefit was
he going to reveal any details of that scene on High Fell 'Never mind,
old fellow, I am content. And, indeed, _faute de mieux_, I should be
content with anything that brought me nearer to her, were it but by the
thousandth of an inch.'

Robert grasped his hand affectionately.

'Catherine,' he called through the door, 'never mind the supper; let it
burn. Flaxman brings news.'

Catherine listened to the story with amazement. Certainly her ways would
never have been as her sister's.

'Are we supposed to know?' she asked, very naturally.

'She never forbade me to tell,' said Flaxman smiling. 'I think, however,
if I were you, I should say nothing about it--yet. I told her it was
part of our bargain that _she_ should explain my letters to Mrs.
Leyburn. I gave her free leave to invent any fairy tale she pleased, but
it was to be _her_ invention, not mine.

Neither Robert nor Catherine were very well pleased. But there was
something reassuring as well as comic in the stoicism with which Flaxman
took his position. And clearly the matter must be left to manage itself.

Next morning the weather had improved. Robert, his hand on Flaxman's
arm, got down to the beach. Flaxman watched him critically, did not like
some of his symptoms, but thought on the whole he must be recovering at
the normal rate, considering how severe the attack had been.

'What do you think of him?' Catherine asked him next day, with all her
soul in her eyes. They had left Robert established in a sunny nook, and
were strolling on along the sands.

'I think you must get him home, call in a first-rate doctor, and keep
him quiet,' said Flaxman. 'He will be all right presently.'

'How _can_ we keep him quiet?' said Catherine, with a momentary despair
in her fine pale face. 'All day long and all night long he is thinking
of his work. It is like something fiery burning the heart out of him.'

Flaxman felt the truth of the remark during the four days of calm autumn
weather he spent with them before the return journey. Robert would talk
to him for hours, now on the sands, with the gray infinity of sea before
them, now pacing the bounds of their little room till fatigue made him
drop heavily into his long chair; and the burden of it all was the
religious future of the working-class.