as she has not sent any
instructions."

"Hasn't she written to you?"

"No; we've had no letter from her since the first day of last
October."

"Then why do you idle away your mornings down here?" asked the
engineer, wonderingly. "Can you afford to leave off working like
this?"

"No," replied the man, smiling to himself. "I suppose it's wrong
in me to do so; but all that will soon be made good."

"Is it possible that you're such a stupid ass as to hang round here
when there's no occasion for it?" roared the engineer, furiously.
"You ought to be shut up in a madhouse."

The man said nothing. He sat with his hands clasped round his
knees, quite unperturbed. A smile played about his mouth all the
while, and every second he seemed more and more confident of his
ultimate triumph.

The engineer shrugged his shoulders and walked away, but before he
was halfway down the hill he repented his harshness, and turned
back. The stern forbidding look which his strong features
habitually wore was now gone and he put out his hand to the man.

"I want to shake hands with you," he said. "Until now I had always
thought that I was the only one in this parish who knew what it was
to yearn; but now I see that I have found my master."

THE EMPRESS

The little girl of Ruffluck had been away fully thirteen months,
yet Jan had not betrayed by so much as a word that he had any
knowledge of the great thing that had come to her. He had vowed
to himself never to speak of this until Glory Goldie's return. If
the little girl did not discover that he knew about her grandeur,
her pleasure in overwhelming him would be all the greater.

But in this world of ours it is the unexpected that happens mostly.
There came a day when Jan was forced to unseal his lips and tell
what he knew. Not on his own account. Indeed not! For he would have
been quite content to go about in his shabby clothes and let folks
think him nothing but a poor crofter to the end of his days. It was
for the little girl's own sake that he felt compelled to reveal the
great secret.

It happened one day, early in August, when he had gone down to the
pier to watch for her. For you see, going down to meet the boat
every day that he might see her come ashore, was a pleasure he had
been unable to deny himself. The boat had just put in and he had
seen that Glory Goldie was not on board. He had supposed that she
would be finished with everything now and could leave for home. But