d to the stores fifty camel-loads
this year, and each year hereafter. Have heed to it. Ere it starts, come
to me. I would see all with mine own eyes."

CHAPTER XV. SOOLSBY'S HAND UPON THE CURTAIN

Faith raised her eyes from the paper before her and poised her head
meditatively.

"How long is it, friend, since--"

"Since he went to Egypt?"

"Nay, since thee--"

"Since I went to Mass?" he grumbled humorously.

She laughed whimsically. "Nay, then, since thee made the promise--"

"That I would drink no more till his return--ay, that was my bargain;
till then and no longer! I am not to be held back then, unless I change
my mind when I see him. Well, 'tis three years since--"

"Three years! Time hasn't flown. Is it not like an old memory, his
living here in this house, Soolsby, and all that happened then?"

Soolsby looked at her over his glasses, resting his chin on the back
of the chair he was caning, and his lips worked in and out with a
suppressed smile.

"Time's got naught to do with you. He's afeard of you," he continued.
"He lets you be."

"Friend, thee knows I am almost an old woman now." She made marks
abstractedly upon the corner of a piece of paper. "Unless my hair turns
grey presently I must bleach it, for 'twill seem improper it should
remain so brown."

She smoothed it back with her hand. Try as she would to keep it trim
after the manner of her people, it still waved loosely on her forehead
and over her ears. And the grey bonnet she wore but added piquancy to
its luxuriance, gave a sweet gravity to the demure beauty of the face it
sheltered.

"I am thirty now," she murmured, with a sigh, and went on writing.

The old man's fingers moved quickly among the strips of cane, and, after
a silence, without raising his head, he said: "Thirty, it means naught."

"To those without understanding," she rejoined drily.

"'Tis tough understanding why there's no wedding-ring on yonder finger.
There's been many a man that's wanted it, that's true--the Squire's son
from Bridgley, the lord of Axwood Manor, the long soldier from Shipley
Wood, and doctors, and such folk aplenty. There's where understanding
fails."

Faith's face flushed, then it became pale, and her eyes, suffused,
dropped upon the paper before her. At first it seemed as though she must
resent his boldness; but she had made a friend of him these years past,
and she knew he meant no rudeness. In the past they had talked of things
deeper a