eir disposal; but he was too
proud to say "thank you" for what they had done for him, or to confess
that he had never been so well treated in his life before.

During his first days in Chellaston he was hardly able to leave his own
room; but all the time he talked constantly of leaving the place as soon
as he was well enough to do so; and the only reason that he did not
bring his will to bear upon his lagging health, and fix the day of
departure, was that he could not compel himself to leave the place where
Sissy was. He knew he must go, yet he could not. One more interview with
her he must have, one more at least before he left Chellaston. He could
not devise any way to bring this about without breaking his promise to
her, but his intention never faltered--see her he must, if only once,
and so the days passed, his mental agitation acting as a drag on the
wheels of his recovery.

CHAPTER VIII.

When Alec Trenholme had had the key of the Harmon house in his
possession some days, he went one evening, beguiled by the charm of the
weather and by curiosity, for the first time into the Harmon garden. He
wished to look over the rooms that were of some interest to him because
of one of their late inmates, and having procrastinated, he thought to
carry out his intention now, in the last hour before darkness came on,
in order to return the key that night.

The path up to the house was lightly barred by the wild vine, that,
climbing on overgrown shrubs on either side, had more than once cast its
tendrils across. A trodden path there was in and out the bushes,
although not the straight original one, and by following it Alec gained
the open space before the house. Here self-sown magenta petunias made
banks of colour against the old brick walls, and the evening light,
just turning rosy, fell thereon. He could not see the river, although he
heard it flowing behind a further mass of bushes. He stood alone with
the old house in the opening that was enclosed by shrubs and trees so
full of leaf that they looked like giant heaps of leaves, and it seemed
to him that, if earth might have an enchanted place, he had surely
entered it. Then, remembering that the light would not last long, he
fitted the key to the door and went in.

Outside, nature had done her work, but inside the ugly wall-paper and
turned bannisters of a modern villa had not been much beautified by dust
and neglect. Still, there is something in the atmosphere of