urrent of my life began
to set in a different direction. I turned the pages of a book of pity
and of death more beautiful than that of Pierre Loti. I could hear at
last the great cry for sympathy, which is the music of this strange
suffering world, and, listening to it, in my heart there rang an echo.
The cruelty in my nature seemed to shrivel up. I was more gentle than I
had been, more gentle than I had thought I could ever be.

At last, in the late spring, we started for home. We stayed for a week
in London, and then we travelled north. Margot had never seen her
future home, had never even been in Cumberland before. She was full
of excitement and happiness, a veritable child in the ready and ardent
expression of her feelings. The station is several miles from the house,
and is on the edge of the sea. When the train pulled up at the wayside
platform the day drew towards sunset, and the flat levels of the beach
shone with a rich, liquid, amber light. In the distance the sea was
tossing and tumbling, whipped into foam by a fresh wind. The Isle of Man
lay far away, dark, mysterious, under a stack of bellying white clouds,
just beginning to be tinged with the faintest rose.

Margot found the scene beautiful, the wind life-giving, the flat
sand-banks, the shining levels, even the dry, spiky grass that fluttered
in the breeze, fascinating and refreshing.

"I feel near the heart of Nature in a place like this," she said,
looking up at a seagull that hovered over the little platform, crying to
the wind on which it hung.

The train stole off along the edge of the sands, till we could see only
the white streamer of its smoke trailing towards the sun. We turned away
from the sea, got into the carriage that was waiting for us, and set
our faces inland. The ocean was blotted out by the low grass and
heather-covered banks that divided the fields. Presently we plunged into
woods. The road descended sharply. A village, an abruptly winding river
sprang into sight.

We were on my land. We passed the inn, the Rainwood Arms, named after
my grandfather's family. The people whom we met stared curiously and
saluted in rustic fashion.

Margot was full of excitement and pleasure, and talked incessantly,
holding my hand tightly in hers and asking a thousand questions. Passing
through the village, we mounted a hill towards a thick grove of trees.

"The house stands among them," I said, pointing.

She sprang up eagerly in the carriage to