ed him, had experienced pangs of doubt, nobody
else troubled the least, and even the small community of Monksland
remained profoundly undisturbed as to the fate of one of its principal
inhabitants.

So little is an unsympathetic world concerned in our greatest and most
particular adventures! A birth, a marriage, an inquest, a scandal--these
move it superficially, for the rest it has no enthusiasm to spare. This
cold neglect of events which had seemed to him so important reacted upon
Morris, who, now that he had got over his chill and fatigue, saw them
in their proper proportions. A little adventure in an open boat at sea
which had ended without any mishap, was not remarkable, and might even
be made to appear ridiculous. So the less said about it, especially to
Mary, whose wit he feared, the better.

When dinner was finished Stella left the room, passing down its shadowed
recesses with a peculiar grace of which even her limp could not rob her.
Ten minutes later, while Morris sat sipping a glass of claret, the nurse
came down to tell him that Mr. Fregelius would like to see him if he
were disengaged. Reflecting that he might as well get the interview
over, Morris followed her at once to the Abbot's chamber, where the sick
man lay.

Except for a single lamp near the bed, the place was unlighted, but by
the fire, its glow falling on her white-draped form and pale, uncommon
face, sat Stella. As he entered she rose, and, coming forward,
accompanied him to the bedside, saying, in an earnest voice:

"Father, here is our host, Mr. Monk, the gentleman who saved my life at
the risk of his own."

The patient raised his bandaged head and stretched out a long thin hand;
he could stir nothing else, for his right thigh was in splints beneath a
coffer-like erection designed to keep the pressure of the blankets from
his injured limb.

"Sir, I thank you," he said in a dry, staccato voice; "all the humanity
that is lacking from the hearts of those rude wretches, the crew of the
Trondhjem, must have found its home in you."

Morris looked at the dark, quiet eyes that seemed to express much which
the thin and impassive face refused to reveal; at the grey pointed beard
and the yellowish skin of the outstretched arm. Here before him, he
felt, lay a man whose personality it was not easy to define, one who
might be foolish, or might be able, but of whose character the leading
note was reticence, inherent or acquired. Then he took the hand