you were fond of
him," he went on in rather a rambling way. "It would make all the
difference in the world----"

She turned towards him quickly with a smile. Her breathing was a little
hurried.

"Shall we go back now?" she said.

"Certainly!--if--if you wish--but isn't it rather nice up here?" he
pleaded.

"We'll come another day," and she ran lightly down the first half of the
grassy path which had led them to the summit. "But I mustn't waste any
more time this afternoon."

"Why? Any pressing demands for mended lace?" asked Angus, as he followed
her.

"Oh no! Not particularly so. Only when the firm that employs me, sends
any very specially valuable stuff worth five or six hundred pounds or
so, I never like to keep it longer that I can help. And the piece I'm at
work on is valued at a thousand guineas."

"Wouldn't you like to wear it yourself?" he asked suddenly, with a
laugh.

"I? I wouldn't wear it for the world! Do you know, Mr. Reay, that I
almost hate beautiful lace! I admire the work and design, of course--no
one could help that--but every little flower and leaf in the fabric
speaks to me of so many tired eyes growing blind over the intricate
stitches--so many weary fingers, and so many aching hearts--all toiling
for the merest pittance! For it is not the real makers of the lace who
get good profit by their work, it is the merchants who sell it that have
all the advantage. If I were a great lady and a rich one, I would refuse
to buy any lace from the middleman,--I would seek out the actual poor
workers, and give them my orders, and see that they were comfortably fed
and housed as long as they worked for me."

"And it's just ten chances to one whether they would be grateful to
you----" Angus began. She silenced him by a slight gesture.

"But I shouldn't care whether they were grateful or not," she said. "I
should be content to know that I had done what was right and just to my
fellow-creatures."

They had no more talk that day, and Helmsley, eagerly expectant, and
watching them perhaps more intently than a criminal watches the face of
a judge, was as usual disappointed. His inward excitement, always
suppressed, made him somewhat feverish and irritable, and Mary, all
unconscious of the cause, stayed in to "take care of him" as she said,
and gave up her afternoon walks with Angus for a time altogether, which
made the situation still more perplexing, and to Helmsley almost
unbearable. Yet there was no