th
her that 'ud make they stone sphinxes gallop round the desert if so be
she'd a mind they should."

Apparently, however, the sphinx of Far End was compounded of even more
adamantine substance than his feminine prototype, for he exhibited
a mulish aversion to budging an inch--much less galloping--in the
direction Sara had indicated as desirable.

The two quarreled vehemently over the matter, and a glacial atmosphere
of hostility prevailed between them during the period of Black Brady's
incarceration.

Garth, undeniably the victor, was the first to open peace negotiations,
and a few days subsequent to Brady's release from prison, he waylaid
Sara in the town.

She was preoccupied with numerous small, unnecessary commissions to be
executed for Mrs. Selwyn at half-a-dozen different shops, and she would
have passed him by with a frosty little bow had he not halted in front
of her and deliberately held out his hand.

"Good-morning!" he said, blithely disregarding the coolness of his
reception. "Am I still in disgrace? Brady's been restored to the bosom
of his family for at least five days now, you know."

Overhead, the sun was shining gloriously in an azure sky flecked with
little bunchy white clouds like floating pieces of cotton-wool, while
an April breeze, fragrant of budding leaf and blossom, rollicked up the
street. It seemed almost as though the frolicsome atmosphere of spring
had permeated even the shell of the hermit and got into his system,
for there was something incorrigibly boyish and youthful about him this
morning. His cheerful smile was infectious.

"Can't I be restored, too?" he asked

"Restored to what?" asked Sara, trying to resist the contagion of his
good humour.

"Oh, well"--a faint shadow dimmed the sparkle in his eyes--"to the same
old place I held before our squabble over Brady--just friends, Sara."

For a moment she hesitated. He had pitted his will against hers and won,
hands down, and she felt distinctly resentful. But she knew that in a
strange, unforeseen way their quarrel had hurt her inexplicably. She had
hated meeting the cool, aloof expression of his eyes, and now, urged
by some emotion of which she was, as yet, only dimly conscious, she
capitulated.

"That's good," he said contentedly. "And you might just as well give in
now as later," he added, smiling.

"All the same," she protested, "you're a bully."

"I know I am--I glory in it! But now, just to show that you really do