ed at the
other as if expecting speech. Yet neither spoke, and after a slow
dwelling of questioning eyes, each on each, as if in a kind of reproach
they looked suddenly away again.

The sunset glow deepened into rich crimson. The valleys into which they
looked down from the high corner of the field were lakes of fathomless
sapphire. The light smoky haze on the ridges was infinitely varied in
tone, and caused the distance to fall back, crest behind crest, in
illimitable perspective.

Still they did not speak, but their hearts beat so loudly that they
answered each other. The stone dyke was between. Grace Hutchinson took
back her hand.

Opportunity stood on tip-toe. The full tide of Duncan Rowallan's affairs
lipped the watershed, the stone dyke only standing between.

He turned towards her. Far away a sheep bleated. The sound came to
Duncan scornfully, as though a wicked elf had laughed at his
indecision.

He put out his hands across the rough stones to take her hand again. He
touched her warm shoulders instead beneath the shawl. He drew her to
him. Into the deep eyes luminous with blackness he looked as into the
mirror of his fate. Now, what happened just then is a mystery, and I
cannot explain it. Neither can Grace nor Duncan. They have gone many
times to the very place to find out exactly how it all happened, but
without success. Where they have failed, can I succeed?

I can only tell what did happen.

Duncan Rowallan seemed to rise into another world, as in his childhood
he had often dreamed of doing, looking up and up into the fleecy waves
of the highest cloudlets. Her lips beckoned to him in the gloaming, like
a red flower whose petals have fallen a little apart. It came at last.

For the dyke proved too narrow, and in one swift electric touch their
old world flew into flinders.

The stone dyke was not any longer between. Duncan Rowallan had
overleaped it and stood by the side of Grace Hutchison.

* * * * *

The minister had come home to Howpaslet manse exceedingly elate. At last
he had won the battle. The Kers had gone home gnashing their teeth.
There was lament in the manse of the Calvins. After long endeavours he
had got the farmer and the publican to vote for the dismissal of Duncan
Rowallan. He smiled to himself as he came in. He was not a malicious
man, but he could not bear being worsted in his own parish. His feeling
against Duncan Rowallan was neither here nor th