mming. You will be head of the school."

"There must be a head."

"Is the school likely to be established soon?"

He fell into her dead tone: "Money is required for establishments. I
have a Reversion coming some day; I don't dabble in post obits."

He waited for farther questions. They were at an end.

"You have your work to do, Mr. Weyburn."

Saying that, she bowed an implied apology for having kept him from
it, and rose. She bowed again as she passed through the doorway, in
acknowledgment of his politeness.

Here; then, was the end of the story of Browny and Matey. Such was his
thought under the truncheon-stroke of their colloquy. Lines of Browny's
letters were fiery waving ribands about him, while the coldly gracious
bow of the Lady wrote Finis.

The gulf between the two writings remained unsounded. It gave a heave to
the old passion; but stirred no new one; he had himself in hand now,
and he shut himself up when the questions bred of amazement buzzed and
threatened to storm. After all, what is not curious in this world? The
curious thing would be if curious things should fail to happen. Men have
been saying it since they began to count and turn corners. And let
us hold off from speculating when there is or but seems a shadow of
unholiness over that mole-like business. There shall be no questions;
and as to feelings, the same. They, if petted for a moment beneath the
shadow, corrupt our blood. Weyburn was a man to have them by the throat
at the birth.

Still they thronged; heavy work of strangling had to be done. Her tone
of disappointment with the schoolmaster bit him, and it flattered
him. The feelings leapt alive, equally venomous from the wound and the
caress. They pushed to see, had to be repelled from seeing, the girl
Browny in the splendid woman; they had lightning memories: not the pain
of his grip could check their voice on the theme touching her happiness
or the reverse. And this was an infernal cunning. He paused perforce to
inquire, giving them space for the breeding of their multitudes. Was she
happy? Did she not seem too meditative, enclosed, toneless, at her age?
Vainly the persecuted fellow said to himself: "But what is it to me
now?"--The Browny days were over. The passion for the younger Aminta was
over--buried; and a dream of power belonging to those days was not
yet more than visionary. It had moved her once, when it was a young
soldier's. She treated the schoolmaster's dream as vapour,