merest chance," he said. "But
surely a strange thing has come about. I know that without understanding
it." He leaned over and touched her hand. "You, who are Life--without
understanding I ride here beside you, believing that you brought me
back."

"I tried--I tried! With all my strength, I tried."

"After I had seen your sister to-day, I guessed--I knew. But not at
first. I was not ill of the fever, as excited rumour had it; but I was
ill, and the doctors and the vicar were alarmed. I had fought too long,
and I was giving up, as I have seen the poor fellows in the ballroom
give up. If they were not dragged back they slipped out of one's hands.
If the fever had developed, all would have been over quickly. I knew
the doctors feared that, and I am ashamed to say I was glad of it. But,
yesterday, in the morning, when I was letting myself go with a morbid
pleasure in the luxurious relief of it--something reached me--some slow
rising call to effort and life."

She turned towards him in her saddle, listening, her lips parted.

"I did not even ask myself what was happening, but I began to be
conscious of being drawn back, and to long intensely to see you again. I
was gradually filled with a restless feeling that you were near me, and
that, though I could not physically hear your voice, you were surely
CALLING to me. It was the thing which could not be--but it was--and
because of it I could not let myself drift."

"I did call you! I was on my knees in the church asking to be forgiven
if I prayed mad prayers--but praying the same thing over and over. The
villagers were kneeling there, too. They crowded in, leaving everything
else. You are their hero, and they were in deep earnest."

His look was gravely pondering. His life had not made a mystic of
him--it was Penzance who was the mystic--but he felt himself perplexed
by mysteriously suggestive thought.

"I was brought back--I was brought back," he said. "In the afternoon
I fell asleep and slept profoundly until the morning. When I awoke, I
realised that I was a remade man. The doctors were almost awed when I
first spoke to them. Old Dr. Fenwick died later, and, after I had
heard about it, the church bell was tolled. It was heard at Weaver's
farmhouse, and, as everybody had been excitedly waiting for the sound,
it conveyed but one idea to them--and the boy was sent racing across the
fields to Stornham village. Dearest! Dearest!" he exclaimed.

She had bowed her head and