ment; probably she remembered Edgecumbe's mental
condition, and made allowance accordingly.

Edgecumbe still continued to look at her steadily, and I noticed that
his eyes, which, except at the times when they were wistful, were quiet
and steadfast, now shone like coals of fire. I saw, too, that he was
unable to govern his lips, which were trembling visibly.

'Why do you look at me like that?' she said nervously; 'any one would
think you had seen me before somewhere.'

'I have,' he replied.

'Where?'

He hesitated a second, and then said, 'In my dreams,'--and then,
realizing that his behaviour, to say the least of it, was not ordinary,
he hurriedly went on, 'Please forgive me, Miss Bolivick, but I never
remember having spoken to a woman before.'

She looked at him in astonishment. I suppose the statement to her
seemed foolish and outrageous.

'It is quite true,' he went on earnestly; 'ever since I met Captain
Luscombe at Plymouth I have been in the Army, and I am afraid I have
not been a very sociable kind of character. I have lived with men all
that time, and have been somewhat of a hermit. Of course I have seen
women, in England and in France,' and he laughed nervously.
'But--but--no, I have never spoken to one.'

'And how do I strike you?'

'You seem like a being from another and a more beautiful world,' he
replied gravely. 'I don't know, though, the world as one sees it here
is very beautiful'; and he glanced quickly across the park away to the
moors in the distance, which the setting sun had lit up with a purple
glow.

At that moment Sir Thomas Bolivick, Lorna's father, came to the door,
and in a hearty West Country fashion gave us both a warm welcome.

'Awfully good of you to come, Captain Luscombe,' he said. 'Granville
has spoken so much about you, that I feel as though you were an old
friend. Nonsense, nonsense!'--this in reply to my apologies for
accepting the invitation. 'In times like these, we can't stand upon
ceremony. You are a friend of Granville's, and you are a British
soldier, that's enough for me. Whatever this war has done, it has
smashed up a lot of silly conventions, it has helped us to be more
natural, and when Lorna here told me about you, I wanted to see you.
You see, I have read reports of your speeches, and when I saw that you
were mentioned in the dispatches, I wanted to know you more than ever.
So let there be no nonsense about your being a stranger.'

Soon after, w