hough
no drinker, never missed his hour or so at the village inn. Tavernake,
in time, began to find a sort of comfort in her calm, sexless
companionship. He knew very well that he was to her as she was to him,
something human, something that filled an empty place, yet something
without direct personality. Little by little he felt the bitterness
in his heart grow less. Then a late spring--late, at any rate, in this
quaint corner of the world--stole like some wonderful enchantment across
the face of the moors and the marshes. Yellow gorse starred with golden
clumps the brown hillside; wild lavender gleamed in patches across the
silver-streaked marshes; the dead hedges came blossoming into life.
Crocuses, long lines of yellow and purple crocuses, broke from waxy buds
into starlike blossoms along the front of Matthew Nicholls's garden. And
with the coming o spring, Tavernake found himself suddenly able to thin
of the past. It was a new phase of life. He could sit down and think of
those things that had happened to him, without fearing to be wrecked by
the storm. Often he sat out looking seaward, thinking of the days
when he had first met Beatrice, of those early days of pleasant
companionship, of the marvelous avidity with which he had learned from
her. Only when Elizabeth's face stole into the foreground did he spring
from his place and turn back to his work.

One day Tavernake sat poring over the weekly local paper, reading it
more out of curiosity than from any real interest. Suddenly a familiar
name caught his eye. His heart seemed to stop beating for a moment, and
the page swam before his eyes. Quickly he recovered himself and read:

THE QUEEN'S HALL, UNTHANK ROAD,
NORWICH

TWICE DAILY.
PROFESSOR FRANKLIN
assisted by his daughter,
MISS BEATRICE FRANKLIN,
will give his REFINED and MARVELOUS
ENTERTAINMENT, comprising HYPNOTISM, feats
Of SECOND SIGHT never before attempted on
any stage, THOUGHT-READING, and a BRIEF
LECTURE upon the connection between ANCIENT
SUPERSTITIONS and the EXTRAORDINARY
DEVELOPMENTS OF THE NEW SCIENCE.

PROFESSOR FRANKLIN Can be CONSULTED PRIVATELY,
by letter or by appointment. Address for this
week--The Golden Cow, Bell's Lane, Norwich.

Twice Tavernake read the announcement. Then he went out and found Ruth.

"Ruth," he told her, "there is something calling me bac