have none left."

"Perhaps; at least forgive me, I did so want to look," she answered
humbly as, arm-in-arm, for she needed support, they passed from the
altar to the door.

A grotesque imagination entered the numbed mind of Morris. Their slow
and miserable march turned itself to a vision of a bridal procession
from the altar. Wet, dishevelled, half-frozen, they two were the
bride-groom and the bride, and the bride was a seer of visions, and the
bridegroom was a dreamer of dreams. Yes, and they came up together out
of the bitter sea and the darkness, and they journeyed together to a
vault of the dead----

Thank Heaven! they were out of the place, and above was the sun shining,
and, to the right and left, the grey ocean and the purple plough-lands,
cold-looking, suggesting dangers and labour, but wholesome all of them,
and good to the eye of man. Only why did this woman see visions, and why
did he dream dreams? And what was the meaning of their strange meeting
upon the sea? And what----

"Where are we going?" asked Stella after a while and very faintly.

"Home; to the Abbey, I mean, where your father lies. Now it is not much
more than a mile away."

She sighed; her strength was failing her.

"You had better try to walk, it will warm you," he urged, and she
struggled on.

It was a miserable journey, but they reached the house at length,
passing first through a street of the village in which no one seemed to
be awake. A wretched-looking couple, they stumbled up the steps into
the porch, where Morris rang the bell, for the door was locked. The time
seemed an age, but at last steps were heard, the door was unbarred,
and there appeared a vision of the lad Thomas, yawning, and clad in a
nightshirt and a pair of trousers, with braces attached which dangled to
the floor.

"Oh, Lord!" he said when he saw them, and his jaw dropped.

"Get out of the way, you young idiot," said Morris, "and call the cook."

It was half-past seven in the evening, that is, dinner time, and Morris
stood in the study waiting for Stella, who had announced through the
housemaid that she was coming down.

After telling the servants to send for the doctor and attend to his
companion, who had insisted upon being led straight to her father's
room, Morris's first act that morning on reaching home was to take a
bath as hot as he could bear. Then he drank several cups of coffee with
brandy in it, and as the office would soon be open, wrote a