ts old people on their hands nowadays.
It's a rough time of the world!"

"You'll always find the world rough on you if you turn your back on
those that love you!" she said.

He lifted his head and gazed at her with such a pained and piteous
appeal, that her heart smote her. He looked so very ill, and his worn
face with the snow-white hair ruffled about it, was so pallid and thin.

"God forbid that I should do that!" he murmured tremulously. "God
forbid! Mary, you don't think I would ever do that?"

"No--of course not!" she answered soothingly. "Because you see, you've
come back again. But if you had gone away altogether----"

"You'd have thought me an ungrateful, worthless old rascal, wouldn't
you?" And the smile again sparkled in his dim eyes. "And you and Angus
Reay would have said--'Well, never mind him! He served one useful
purpose at any rate--he brought us together!'"

"Now, David!" said Mary, holding up a warning finger, "You know we
shouldn't have talked in such a way of you at all! Even if you had never
come back, we should always have thought of you kindly--and I should
have always loved you and prayed for you!"

He was silent, mentally pulling himself together. Then he put his arm
gently through hers.

"Let us go home," he said. "I can walk now. Are we far from the coombe?"

"Not ten minutes off," she answered, glad to see him more cheerful and
alert. "By the short cut it's just over the brow of the hill. Will you
come that way?"

"Any way you like to take me," and leaning on her arm he walked bravely
on. "Where is Angus?"

"I left him sitting under a tree at the top of the coombe near the
Church," she replied. "He was busy with his writing, and I told him I
would just run across the hill and see if you were coming. I had a sort
of fancy you would be tramping home this morning! And where have you
been all these days?"

"A good way," he answered evasively. "I'm rather a slow walker."

"I should think you were!" and she laughed good-humouredly. "You must
have been pretty near us all the while!"

He made no answer, and together they paced slowly across the grass,
sweet with the mixed perfume of thousands of tiny close-growing herbs
and flowers which clung in unseen clumps to the soil. All at once the
quaint little tower of Weircombe Church thrust its ivy-covered summit
above the edge of the green slope which they were ascending, and another
few steps showed the glittering reaches of the sunlit s