s well
as certain peculiar powers which had put the honest phenomena and the
trickery of the Medicine Men in the shade. He had influenced people
by the sheer force of presence. As he walked on, he came to a group of
trees in the middle of the common. He paused for a moment, and looked
back. The gipsy's van was moving away, and in the doorway stood the
girl, her hand over her eyes, looking towards him. He could see the raw
colour of her scarf. "She'll make wild trouble," he said to himself.

As Gaston thought of this event, he moved his horse slowly towards a
combe, and looked out over a noble expanse--valley, field, stream,
and church-spire. As he gazed, he saw seated at some distance a girl
reading. Not far from her were two boys climbing up and down the combe.
He watched them. Presently he saw one boy creep along a shelf of rock
where the combe broke into a quarry, let himself drop upon another shelf
below, and then perch upon an overhanging ledge. He presently saw that
the lad was now afraid to return. He heard the other lad cry out, saw
the girl start up, and run forward, look over the edge of the combe, and
then make as if to go down. He set his horse to the gallop, and called
out. The girl saw him, and paused. In two minutes he was off his horse
and beside her.

It was Alice Wingfield. She had brought out three boys, who had come
with her from London, where she had spent most of the year nursing their
sick mother, her relative.

"I'll have him up in a minute," he said, as he led Saracen to a sapling
near. "Don't go near the horse."

He swung himself down from ledge to ledge, and soon was beside the boy.
In another moment he had the youngster on his back, came slowly up, and
the adventurer was safe.

"Silly Walter," the girl said, "to frighten yourself and give Mr.
Belward trouble."

"I didn't think I'd be afraid," protested the lad; "but when I looked
over the ledge my head went round, and I felt sick--like with the
channel."

Gaston had seen Alice Wingfield several times at church and in
the village, and once when, with Lady Belward, he had returned the
archdeacon's call; but she had been away most of the time since his
arrival. She had impressed him as a gentle, wise, elderly little
creature, who appeared to live for others, and chiefly for her
grandfather. She was not unusually pretty, nor yet young,--quite as
old as himself,--and yet he wondered what it was that made her so
interesting. He decided th