stood for a moment by the door, which opened into the
garden, to revive himself with a draught of the black, starlit air.

"Do come in and shut the door!" Mary cried, half turning in her chair.

"We shall have a fine day to-morrow," said Christopher with complacency,
and he sat himself on the floor at her feet, and leant his back against
her knees, and stretched out his long stockinged legs to the fire--all
signs that he felt no longer any restraint at the presence of the
stranger. He was the youngest of the family, and Mary's favorite, partly
because his character resembled hers, as Edward's character resembled
Elizabeth's. She made her knees a comfortable rest for his head, and ran
her fingers through his hair.

"I should like Mary to stroke my head like that," Ralph thought to
himself suddenly, and he looked at Christopher, almost affectionately,
for calling forth his sister's caresses. Instantly he thought of
Katharine, the thought of her being surrounded by the spaces of night
and the open air; and Mary, watching him, saw the lines upon his
forehead suddenly deepen. He stretched out an arm and placed a log upon
the fire, constraining himself to fit it carefully into the frail red
scaffolding, and also to limit his thoughts to this one room.

Mary had ceased to stroke her brother's head; he moved it impatiently
between her knees, and, much as though he were a child, she began once
more to part the thick, reddish-colored locks this way and that. But
a far stronger passion had taken possession of her soul than any her
brother could inspire in her, and, seeing Ralph's change of expression,
her hand almost automatically continued its movements, while her mind
plunged desperately for some hold upon slippery banks.

CHAPTER XVI

Into that same black night, almost, indeed, into the very same layer of
starlit air, Katharine Hilbery was now gazing, although not with a view
to the prospects of a fine day for duck shooting on the morrow. She was
walking up and down a gravel path in the garden of Stogdon House, her
sight of the heavens being partially intercepted by the light leafless
hoops of a pergola. Thus a spray of clematis would completely obscure
Cassiopeia, or blot out with its black pattern myriads of miles of the
Milky Way. At the end of the pergola, however, there was a stone seat,
from which the sky could be seen completely swept clear of any earthly
interruption, save to the right, indeed, where a line of