lso with a
certain pride. To-night he might have felt the regret without any pride to
leaven it but for the fact that his mind was lost to every consideration
but one--Phyl.

All through his life Silas had followed with an iron will the line that
pleased him, never for a moment had he counted the cost of his actions;
just as he had swum the harbour with his clothes on so had he plunged into
any adventure that came to hand; he knew Fear just as little as he knew
Consequence. Well, now he found himself for the first time in his life
face to face with Fate. All his adventures up to this had been little
things involving at worst loss of life by accident. This was different; it
involved his whole future and the future of the girl who had mastered his
mind.

Leaving Legare Street he reached Meeting Street and passed up it till he
reached Vernons. The moon, high in the sky now, showed the garden through
the trellis-work of the iron gate, and Silas paused for a moment and
looked in.

The garden, seen like this with the moonlight upon the roses and the
glossy leaves of the southern trees, presented a picture charming,
dream-like, almost unreal in its beauty. He tried the gate. It was locked.
On ordinary nights it would be open till the house closed, or in the event
of Pinckney being out, until he returned, but to-night, owing to the
absence of the family, it was locked.

Then, turning from the gate he crossed the road and took up his position
in a corner of shadow. Five minutes passed, then twenty, but still he kept
watch. There were few passers-by at that hour and little traffic; he had a
long view of the moonlit street and presently he saw the carriage he was
waiting for approaching.

It drew up at the front door of Vernons and he watched whilst the
occupants got out; he caught a glimpse of Phyl as she entered the house
following Miss Pinckney and followed by Richard, then the door shut and
the carriage drove away.

Silas left his concealment and crossed the road. He paced for a while up
and down outside the door of Vernons, then he came to the garden gate
again and looked in.

From here one could get a glimpse of the first and second floor piazzas
and the windows opening upon them. He could not tell which was the window
of Phyl's room, it was enough for him that the place held her.

In the way in which he had crossed the road, in his uneasy prowling up and
down before the house, and now in his attitude as he stood m