urrey, or pretending to do so. He sat in a corner of the study, where
he and the vicar protected each other against Mrs. Thornburgh. That good
woman would open the door once and again in the morning, and put her
head through in search of prey; but on being confronted with two
studious men instead of one, each buried up to the ears in folios, she
would give vent to an irritable cough and retire discomfited. In reality
Elsmere was thinking of nothing in the world but what Catherine Leyburn
might be doing that morning. Judging a North countrywoman by the
pusillanimous Southern standard, he found himself glorying in the
weather. She could not wander far from him to-day.

After the early dinner he escaped, just as the vicar's wife was devising
an excuse on which to convey both him and herself to Burwood, and
sallied forth with a mackintosh for a rush down the Whinborough road. It
was still raining, but the clouds showed a momentary lightening, and a
few gleams of watery sunshine brought out every now and then that
sparkle on the trees, that iridescent beauty of distance and atmosphere
which goes so far to make a sensitive spectator forget the petulant
abundance of mountain rain. Elsmere passed Burwood with a thrill. Should
he or should he not present himself? Let him push on a bit and think. So
on he swung, measuring his tall frame against the gusts, spirits and
masculine energy rising higher with every step. At last the passion of
his mood had wrestled itself out with the weather, and he turned back
once more determined to seek and find her, to face his fortunes like a
man. The warm rain beating from the west struck on his uplifted face. He
welcomed it as a friend. Rain and storm had opened to him the gates of a
spiritual citadel. What could ever wholly close it against him any more?
He felt so strong, so confident! Patience and courage!

Before him the great hollow of High Fell was just coming out from the
white mists surging round it. A shaft of sunlight lay across its upper
end, and he caught a marvellous apparition of a sunlit valley hung in
air, a pale strip of blue above it, a white thread of stream wavering
through it, and all around it and below it the rolling rain-clouds.

Suddenly between him and that enchanter's vision he saw a dark slim
figure against the mists, walking before him along the road. It was
Catherine--Catherine just emerged from a footpath across the fields,
battling with wind and rain, and quite u