urze and wood, and hung a little kettle to it by a chain hooked to a
staple in the chimney, and arranged her curious old china, picked up
long years ago by her father at village sales, upon the quaintly carved
table set in the coolest spot of the dusky room. There was an air of
simple busy gladness in her face and in every quick yet graceful
movement that was inexpressibly charming to him. Maybe both of them
glanced back at the dark past when Roland Sefton had been watching her
with despairing eyes, yet neither of them spoke of it. That life was
dead and buried. The present was altogether different.

Yet the meal was a silent one, and as soon as it was finished they went
out again on to the hazy moorland.

"Are you quite rested yet, Phebe?" asked Jean Merle.

"Quite," she answered, with unconscious emphasis.

"And you have settled upon some plan for the future?" he said.

"No," she replied; "I am altogether at a loss. There is no one in all
the world who has a claim upon me, or whom I have a claim upon; no one
to say to me 'Go' or 'Come.' When the world is all before you and it is
an empty world, it is difficult to choose which way you will take in
it."

She had paused as she spoke; but now they walked on again in silence,
Jean Merle looking down on her sweet yet somewhat sad face with
attentive eyes. How little changed she was from the simple,
faithful-hearted girl he had known long ago! There was the same candid
and thoughtful expression on her face, and the same serene light in her
blue eyes, as when she stood beside him, a little girl, patiently yet
earnestly mastering the first difficulties of reading. There was no one
in the wide world whom he knew as perfectly as he knew her; no one in
the wide world who knew him as perfectly as she did.

"Tell me, Phebe," he said gravely, "is it possible that you have lived
so long and that no man has found out what a priceless treasure you
might be to him?"

"No one," she answered, with a little tremor in her voice; "only Simon
Nixey," she added, laughing, as she thought of his perseverance from
year to year. Jean Merle stopped and laid his hand on Phebe's arm.

"Will you be my wife?" he asked.

The brief question escaped him before he was aware of it. It was as
utterly new to him as it was to her; yet the moment it was uttered he
felt how much the happiness of his life depended upon it. Without her
all the future would be dreary and lonely for him. With her--Jean Me