the gardens where
he went several days each week.

Mr. Craven looked over the collection of sturdy little bodies and round
red-cheeked faces, each one grinning in its own particular way, and he
awoke to the fact that they were a healthy likable lot. He smiled at
their friendly grins and took a golden sovereign from his pocket and
gave it to "our 'Lizabeth Ellen" who was the oldest.

"If you divide that into eight parts there will be half a crown for
each of, you," he said.

Then amid grins and chuckles and bobbing of curtsies he drove away,
leaving ecstasy and nudging elbows and little jumps of joy behind.

The drive across the wonderfulness of the moor was a soothing thing.
Why did it seem to give him a sense of homecoming which he had been
sure he could never feel again--that sense of the beauty of land and
sky and purple bloom of distance and a warming of the heart at drawing,
nearer to the great old house which had held those of his blood for six
hundred years? How he had driven away from it the last time, shuddering
to think of its closed rooms and the boy lying in the four-posted bed
with the brocaded hangings. Was it possible that perhaps he might find
him changed a little for the better and that he might overcome his
shrinking from him? How real that dream had been--how wonderful and
clear the voice which called back to him, "In the garden--In the
garden!"

"I will try to find the key," he said. "I will try to open the door.
I must--though I don't know why."

When he arrived at the Manor the servants who received him with the
usual ceremony noticed that he looked better and that he did not go to
the remote rooms where he usually lived attended by Pitcher. He went
into the library and sent for Mrs. Medlock. She came to him somewhat
excited and curious and flustered.

"How is Master Colin, Medlock?" he inquired. "Well, sir," Mrs. Medlock
answered, "he's--he's different, in a manner of speaking."

"Worse?" he suggested.

Mrs. Medlock really was flushed.

"Well, you see, sir," she tried to explain, "neither Dr. Craven, nor
the nurse, nor me can exactly make him out."

"Why is that?"

"To tell the truth, sir, Master Colin might be better and he might be
changing for the worse. His appetite, sir, is past understanding--and
his ways--"

"Has he become more--more peculiar?" her master, asked, knitting his
brows anxiously.

"That's it, sir. He's growing very peculiar--when you compare him wit