d, "I sent the boy back. He told me I was close to the place, and
couldn't miss it."

"What made you stop here when he left you?" reiterated Allan. "Why
didn't you walk on?"

"Don't despise me," answered the other. "I hadn't the courage!"

"Not the courage?" repeated Allan. He paused a moment. "Oh, I know!" he
resumed, putting his hand gayly on Midwinter's shoulder. "You're still
shy of the Milroys. What nonsense, when I told you myself that your
peace was made at the cottage!"

"I wasn't thinking, Allan, of your friends at the cottage. The truth is,
I'm hardly myself to-day. I am ill and unnerved; trifles startle me."
He stopped, and shrank away, under the anxious scrutiny of Allan's eyes.
"If you _will_ have it," he burst out, abruptly, "the horror of that
night on board the Wreck has got me again; there's a dreadful oppression
on my head; there's a dreadful sinking at my heart. I am afraid of
something happening to us, if we don't part before the day is out. I
can't break my promise to you; for God's sake, release me from it, and
let me go back!"

Remonstrance, to any one who knew Midwinter, was plainly useless at that
moment. Allan humored him. "Come out of this dark, airless place," he
said, "and we will talk about it. The water and the open sky are within
a stone's throw of us. I hate a wood in the evening; it even gives _me_
the horrors. You have been working too hard over the steward's books.
Come and breathe freely in the blessed open air."

Midwinter stopped, considered for a moment, and suddenly submitted.

"You're right," he said, "and I'm wrong, as usual. I'm wasting time and
distressing you to no purpose. What folly to ask you to let me go back!
Suppose you had said yes?"

"Well?" asked Allan.

"Well," repeated Midwinter, "something would have happened at the first
step to stop me, that's all. Come on."

They walked together in silence on the way to the Mere.

At the last turn in the path Allan's cigar went out. While he stopped
to light it again, Midwinter walked on before him, and was the first to
come in sight of the open ground.

Allan had just kindled the match, when, to his surprise, his friend came
back to him round the turn in the path. There was light enough to show
objects more clearly in this part of the plantation. The match, as
Midwinter faced him, dropped on the instant from Allan's hand.

"Good God!" he cried, starting back, "you look as you looked on board
the Wreck!"

Mid