the gin-traders on the other side, Master
Hugh."

"They don't show their noses in the new provinces," said the young man,
quietly; "we shall straighten that out too, in the long
run--you'll see."

But Diana had ceased to listen. Mrs. Roughsedge, turning toward her, and
with increasing foreboding, saw, as it were, the cloud of an inward
agony, suddenly recalled, creep upon the fleeting brightness of her
look, as the evening shade mounts upon and captures a sunlit hill-side.
The mother, in spite of her native optimism, had never cherished any
real hope of her son's success. But neither had she expected, on the
other side, a certainty so immediate and so unqualified. She saw before
her no settled or resigned grief. The Tallyn tragedy had transformed
what had been almost a recovered serenity, a restored and patient
equilibrium, into something violent, tumultuous, unstable--prophesying
action. But what--poor child!--could the action be?

* * * * *

"Poor Hugh!" said Mrs. Roughsedge to her husband on their return, as she
stood beside him, in his study. Her voice was low, for Hugh had only
just gone up-stairs, and the little house was thinly built.

The doctor rubbed his nose thoughtfully, and then looked round him for a
cigarette.

"Yes," he said, slowly; "but he enjoyed his walk home."

"Henry!"

Hugh had walked back to the village with Mrs. Colwood, who had an errand
there, and it was true that he had talked much to her out of earshot of
his parents, and had taken a warm farewell of her at the end.

"Why am I to be 'Henry'-ed?"--inquired the doctor, beginning on his
cigarette.

"Because you must know," said his wife, in an energetic whisper, "that
Hugh had almost certainly proposed to Miss Mallory before we arrived,
and she had refused him!"

The doctor meditated.

"I still say that Hugh enjoyed his walk," he repeated; "I trust he will
have others of the same kind--with the same person."

"Henry, you are really incorrigible!" cried his wife. "How can you make
jokes--on such a thing--with that girl's face before you!"

"Not at all," said the doctor, protesting. "I am not making jokes,
Patricia. But what you women never will understand is, that it was not a
woman but a man that wrote--

"'If she be not fair for me--
What care I--'"

"Henry!" and his wife, beside herself, tried to stop his mouth with her
hand.

"All right, I won't finish," said the doctor, placi