it was not because you
were a stranger that she was offended, but because you so ungenerously
pretended to be one. That was a little mad, now, if you like!'

'Oh yes,' said Lawford, 'I am going to ask her forgiveness. I don't know
what I didn't vow to take her for a peace-offering if the chance should
ever come--and the courage--to make my peace with her. But now that the
chance has come, and I think the courage, it is the desire that's gone.
I don't seem to care either way. I feel as if I had got past making my
peace with any one.'

But this time no answer helped him out.

'After all,' he went plodding on, 'there is more than just the mere day
to day to consider. And one doesn't realise that one's face actually
IS one's fortune without a shock. And that THAT gone, one is, as
your brother said, just like a bee come back to the wrong hive. It
undermines,' he smiled rather bitterly, 'one's views rather. And it
certainly shifts one's friends. If it hadn't been just for my old'--he
stopped dead, and again pushed slowly on--'if it hadn't been for our
old friend, Mr Bethany, I doubt if we should now have had a soul on our
side. I once read somewhere that wolves always chase the old and weak
and maimed out of the pack. And after all, what do we do? Where do
we keep the homeless and the insane? And yet, you know,' he added
ruminatingly, 'it is not as if mine was ever a particularly lovely or
lovable face! While as for the poor wretch behind it, well, I really
cannot see what meaning, or life even, he had before--'

'Before?'

Lawford met bravely the clear whimsical eyes. 'Before, I was
Sabathiered.'

Grisel laughed outright.

'You think,' he retorted almost bitterly, 'you think I am talking like a
child.'

'Yes,' she sighed cheerfully, 'I was quite envying you.'

'Well, there I am,' said Lawford inconsequently. 'And now; well, now,
I suppose, the whole thing's to begin again. I can't help beginning to
wonder what the meaning of it all is; why one's duty should always seem
so very stupid a thing. And then, too, what can there be on earth
that even a buried Sabathier could desire?' He glanced up in a really
animated perplexity at the still, dark face turned in the evening light
towards the darkening valley. And perplexity deepened into a disquieted
frown--like that of a child who is roused suddenly from a daydream by
the half-forgotten question of a stranger. He turned his eyes almost
furtively away as if afraid of d