grand match it was. But
she was a pretty, notable girl, and nursed him, so I hear, in an
illness; but it was all before we came from the other side of Bath.'

'What do you mean? What is the Squire's name?'

'Bayfield, of course, of Rock House, six or seven miles off Binegar way.
The other sister lives with Mrs Henderson, who had a seizure just about
the time Farmer Palmer died. She was a fine ladyish person, and things
would have gone to wrack and ruin if Miss Palmer had not gone to her.
She has been like a mother to the girls, and taught them lots of things.
Two are out in service, and one in Mrs Hannah More's school.' Jack
turned away, the woman calling after him,--

'Come in and rest, sir, and take a cup of cider. You look very tired.'

But Jack shook his head and set off at a quick pace towards his mother's
house.

No one recognised him; he was bronzed with exposure to the air, and his
face was deeply lined with care, so that he looked prematurely old. His
thick curly hair was streaked with grey, and his huge frame was a little
bent, as he leaned heavily on his stick. The news he had heard filled
his heart with strangely mixed feelings. The Squire was alive, the great
burden of manslaughter, which had lain so heavily upon him for ten long
years of exile, was removed. But Bryda had married him.

Of course he saw it all--desire in her part to atone for what he had
done for her sake. Did not the woman say she had nursed him through an
illness? Yes, it was all plain--Bryda was lost to him for ever.

He could not make up his mind to see _her_, but he would like to see
Betty, and so he walked on slowly towards his mother's house.

He felt more like a man in a dream as he passed all the familiar objects
on the road--all associated with the love of his whole life.

A high gig passed him at a quick trot. Looking up, he recognised his
brother, his red hair gleaming in the sunshine; but he did not see him,
or, if he saw him, did not recognise him.

'He looks prosperous, anyhow,' Jack thought, as he looked back at the
cart wheeling swiftly down the road. The children at a few cottage doors
looked up from their play to gaze at the traveller. 'They don't know
me. No one knows,' he thought bitterly. Then he remembered that the
children of ten years ago were men and women now. 'How could these
little things know him? Betty won't know me,' he said, 'like as not.
Well, I must see her. I must hear what she can tell me, and