med to show unconsciousness.

'The star is over MY head,' she said with hesitation.

'Or anybody else's in England.'

'Oh yes, I see:' she breathed her relief.

'His parents, I believe, are natives of this county. I don't know
them, though I have been in correspondence with him for many years till
lately. Fortunately or unfortunately for him he fell in love, and then
went to Bombay. Since that time I have heard very little of him.'

Knight went no further in his volunteered statement, and though Elfride
at one moment was inclined to profit by the lessons in honesty he had
just been giving her, the flesh was weak, and the intention dispersed
into silence. There seemed a reproach in Knight's blind words, and yet
she was not able to clearly define any disloyalty that she had been
guilty of.

Chapter XX

'A distant dearness in the hill.'

Knight turned his back upon the parish of Endelstow, and crossed over to
Cork.

One day of absence superimposed itself on another, and proportionately
weighted his heart. He pushed on to the Lakes of Killarney, rambled amid
their luxuriant woods, surveyed the infinite variety of island, hill,
and dale there to be found, listened to the marvellous echoes of that
romantic spot; but altogether missed the glory and the dream he formerly
found in such favoured regions.

Whilst in the company of Elfride, her girlish presence had not
perceptibly affected him to any depth. He had not been conscious that
her entry into his sphere had added anything to himself; but now
that she was taken away he was very conscious of a great deal being
abstracted. The superfluity had become a necessity, and Knight was in
love.

Stephen fell in love with Elfride by looking at her: Knight by ceasing
to do so. When or how the spirit entered into him he knew not: certain
he was that when on the point of leaving Endelstow he had felt none of
that exquisite nicety of poignant sadness natural to such severances,
seeing how delightful a subject of contemplation Elfride had been ever
since. Had he begun to love her when she met his eye after her mishap
on the tower? He had simply thought her weak. Had he grown to love her
whilst standing on the lawn brightened all over by the evening sun? He
had thought her complexion good: no more. Was it her conversation
that had sown the seed? He had thought her words ingenious, and very
creditable to a young woman, but not noteworthy. Had the chess-playing
any