here is Farlingford--unchanged, and no harm done."

"Why should there be any harm done?" was Sep's prompt question.

Barebone was shaking hands with Miriam.

"Oh, I don't know," he answered. "Because there always is harm done, I
suppose."

Miriam was thinking that he had changed; that the man who had unmoored
his boat at these steps six months ago had departed for ever, and that
another had come back in his place. A minute later, as he turned to
close the gate that shut off the rectory garden from the river-wall,
chance ruled it that their eyes should meet for an instant, and she knew
that he had not changed; that he might, perhaps, never change so long as
he lived. She turned abruptly and led the way to the house.

Sep had a hundred questions to ask, but only a few of them were
personal. Children live in a world of their own, and are not slow to
invite those whom they like to come to it, while to the others, they
shut the door with a greater frankness than is permissible later in
life.

"Father," he explained, "has gone to see old Doy, who is dying."

"Is he still dying? He will never die, I am sure; for he has been trying
to do it ever since I remember," laughed Barebone; who was interested,
it seemed, in Sep's affairs, and never noticed that Miriam was walking
more quickly than they were.

"And I am rather anxious about him," continued Sep, with the gravity
that comes of a realised responsibility. "He moons along, you know, with
his mind far away, and he doesn't know the path across the marsh a bit.
He is bound to lose his way, and it is getting dark. Suppose I shall
have to go and look for him."

"With a lantern," suggested Loo, darkly, without looking toward Miriam.

"Oh, yes!" replied Sep, with delight. "With a lantern, of course. Nobody
but a fool would go out on to the marshes after dark without a lantern.
The weed on the water makes it the same as the grass, and that old woman
who was nearly drowned last winter, you know, she walked straight in,
and thought it was dry land."

And Loo heard no more, for they were at the door; and Miriam, in the
lighted hall, was waiting for them, with all the colour gone from her
face.

"He is sure to be in in a few minutes," she said; for she had heard the
end of their talk. She could scarcely have helped hearing Loo's
weighty suggestion of a lantern, which had had the effect he must have
anticipated. Sep was already hurriedly searching for matches. It would
be