cumulating seconds. After the surrender, the
admission, of his return he had grown elemental, sensitized to
emotions rather than to processes of intellect. His ardor had the
poignancy of the period beyond youth. It had a trace of the
consciousness of the fatal waning of life which gave it a depth denied
to younger passions. He wished to take Millie Stope at once from all
memory of the troublous past, to have her alone in a totally different
and thrilling existence.

It was a personal and blind desire, born in the unaccustomed tumult of
his newly released feelings.

They sat for a long while, silent or speaking in trivialities, when he
proposed a walk to the sea; but she declined in that curiously loud
and false tone. It seemed to Woolfolk that, for the moment, she had
addressed someone not immediately present; and involuntarily he looked
around. The light of the hidden lamp in the hall fell in a pale,
unbroken rectangle on the irregular porch. There was not the shifting
of a pound's weight audible in the stillness.

Millie breathed unevenly; at times he saw she shivered uncontrollably.
At this his feeling mounted beyond all restraint. He said, taking her
cold hand: "I didn't tell you why I went last night--it was because I
was afraid to stay where you were; I was afraid of the change you were
bringing about in my life. That's all over now, I----"

"Isn't it quite late?" she interrupted him uncomfortably. She rose and
her agitation visibly increased.

He was about to force her to hear all that he must say, but he stopped
at the mute wretchedness of her pallid face. He stood gazing up at her
from the rough sod. She clenched her hands, her breast heaved sharply,
and she spoke in a level, strained voice:

"It would have been better if you had gone--without coming back. My
father is unhappy with anyone about except myself--and Nicholas. You
see--he will not stay on the porch nor walk about his grounds. I am
not in need of assistance, as you seem to think. And--thank you. Good
night."

He stood without moving, his head thrown back, regarding her with a
searching frown. He listened again, unconsciously, and thought he
heard the low creaking of a board from within. It could be nothing but
the uneasy peregrination of Lichfield Stope. The sound was repeated,
grew louder, and the sagging bulk of Nicholas appeared in the
doorway.

The latter stood for a moment, a dark, magnified shape; and then,
moving across the portico