to the heart of man. Their faces are full of anger, and their
mouths are open to devour--"

"Wheesh, wheesh, woman! Here's the young Sheriff come doon frae the Barr
wi' the Fiscal to tak' evidence."

And Barbara Allen was silent as Gregory Jeffray came in.

To do him justice, when he wrote her the letter that killed--concerning
the necessities of his position and career--he had tried to break the
parting gently. How should he know all that she knew? It was clearly an
ill turn that fate had played him. Indeed, he felt ill-used. So he
listened to the Fiscal taking evidence, and in due course departed.

But within an inner pocket he had a letter that was not filed with the
documents, but which might have shed clearer light upon when and how
Grace Allen slipped and fell, gathering flowers at night above the great
pool of the Black Water.

"There is set up a throne in the heavens," chanted mad Barbara Allen as
Gregory went out; "and One sits upon it--and my Gracie's there, clothed
in white robes, an' a palm in her hand. And you'll be there, young man,"
she cried after him, "and I'll be there. There's a cry comin' owre the
Black Water for you, like the cry that raised me oot o' my bed yestreen.
An' ye'll hear it--ye'll hear it, braw young man; ay--and rise up and
answer, too!"

But they paid no heed to her--for, of course, she was mad. Neither did
Gregory Jeffray hear aught as he went out, but the water lapping against
the little boat that was still half full of flowers.

The days went by, and being added together one at a time, they made the
years. And the years grew into one decade, and lengthened out towards
another.

Aunt Annie was long dead, a white stone over her; but there was no stone
over Grace Allen--only a green mound where daisies grew.

Sir Gregory Jeffray came that way. He was a great law-officer of the
Crown, and first heir to the next vacant judgeship. This, however, he
was thinking of refusing because of the greatness of his private
practice.

He had come to shoot at the Barr, and his baggage was at Barmark
station. How strange it would be to see the old places again in the
gloom of a September evening!

Gregory still loved a new sensation. All was so long past--the
bitterness clean gone out of it. The old boathouse had fallen into other
hands, and railways had come to carry the traffic beyond the ferry.

As Sir Gregory Jeffray walked from the late train which set him down at
the station, he fe