and it down,
and he thought she lingered longer than was absolutely necessary, as if
to speak some parting words of encouragement. The impression that
further words had passed between them was so disquieting, in view of
his suspicion of Emmet's audacity, that he was fain to believe himself
mistaken. It seemed that Cobbens also had lost nothing of this
incident, for when she returned, he regarded her with as much
disapproval as he dared to show.

"You 'll turn the poor beggar's head, Miss Wycliffe," he said. "It's a
mistaken kindness. His fall will be all the greater for your whim."

"Sometimes beggars get on horseback," she retorted coolly, "and then
they keep on riding."

Leigh's knowledge of the lawyer's career enabled him to appreciate the
sharpness of this remark, but Cobbens was more adroit than he could
have thought possible in the face of such a taunt.

"Well, when that poor beggar tries to mount the political horse, he 'll
get thrown so hard that he 'll never try it again."

Miss Wycliffe vouchsafed no reply, but turned toward the cabin, and
they followed her in silence. During the subsequent session about the
telescope, Leigh was not surprised to find that she domineered over her
friends, or that they accepted her tyranny without question. In her
self-appointed office of the instructor's assistant, she gave this one
or that the chair, until the young astronomer thought it high time to
protest.

"I insist upon your taking a look yourself," he said. "I have
something of peculiar interest reserved for you." And he trained the
instrument upon Castor, in the constellation of the Twins. She took
the chair and looked for a tantalising length of time in silence, while
with one hand she waved off the questions and impatience of the others.
He bent over her, almost oblivious of their presence. "It's a double
star, you see. What do you think of it?"

"Beautiful!" she answered. "I wondered why I was seeing double. Tell
us about it."

"They are two suns in one sphere, swinging on through space side by
side. Two centuries of calculations have brought out the fact that it
takes forty-four years for the light of Castor to reach us, and that a
thousand years are consumed in one circuit of its orbit."

"I must admit," she said, looking up at him with a mysterious splendour
in her eyes, in which there yet lurked a suspicion of humour, "that a
thousand years gives me a shiver."

Up to this time the moral