ld of his
seaside trip, and, after making up for his day's fasting by a
satisfactory tea, he spent the evening on the jetty listening to the
town brass band.

* * * * *

That was a strange walk for Bernard Maddison. Two sensations were
struggling within him for the mastery, fear and despair at the terrible
crisis which seemed to yawn before his feet, and that sweet revolution
of feeling, that intense, yearning love, which had suddenly thrown a
golden halo over his cold barren life. But as he left the road and took
the moorland path along the cliff, the battle suddenly came to an end.
Before him stretched the open moor, brilliant with coloring, with dark
flushes of purple, and bright streaks of yellow gorse, and the sunlight
glancing upon the hills. There was the pleasant murmuring of the sea in
his ears, a glistening, dancing, silver sea, the blue sky above, and the
fresh strong breeze full of vigorous, bracing life. Something of a glad
recklessness stole over him and lightened his heart. This was no scene,
no hour for sad thoughts. Where was the philosophy of nursing such, of
giving them a home even for a moment? Joy and sorrow, what were they but
abstract states of the mind? Let him wait until the ashes were between
his teeth. The future and the past no man could command, but the present
was his own. He would claim it. He would drink deep of the joy which lay
before him.

And as he walked on over the soft springy turf, with the tall chimneys
of Thurwell Court in the valley before him, life leaped madly through
his veins, and a deep joy held memory in a torpor, and filled his heart
with gladness. The whole passionate side of his nature had been suddenly
quickened into life by his surroundings, and by the thought that down
yonder the woman whom he loved was waiting for him. Once again, come
what may, he would hold her in his arms and hear her voice tremble with
joy at his return. Once more he would hold her face up to his, and look
into her dim, soft eyes, full of that glowing lovelight which none can
fail to read. Once again he would drink deep of this delicious
happiness, a long sweet draught, and if life ended after that moment he
would at least have touched the limits of all earthly joys.

And suddenly he stood face to face with her. He had passed Falcon's
Nest, dismantled and desolate, with scarcely a careless glance, and had
entered the long pine grove which fringed the cliff sid