clined to apologise for the past. These facts Martin listened to,
while the blood beat like a tide within his temples, and a mist dimmed
his eyes as the girl laid her brown hand upon his arm now and again, to
accentuate a point. At such moments the truth tightened upon his soul
and much distressed him.

The antiquary had abandoned any attempt to forget Chris, or cease from
worshipping her with all his heart and soul; but the emotion now muzzled
and chained out of sight he held of nobler composition than that earlier
love which yearned for possession. Those dreary months that dragged
between the present and his first disappointment had served as
foundations for new developments of character in the man. He existed
through a period of unutterable despair and loneliness; then the fruits
of bygone battles fought and won came to his aid, and long-past years of
self-denial and self-control fortified his spirit. The reasonableness of
Martin Grimbal lifted him slowly but steadily from the ashes of
disappointment; even his natural humility helped him, and he told
himself he had no more than his desert. Presently, with efforts the very
vigour of which served as tonic to character, he began to wrestle at the
granite again and resume his archaeologic studies. Speaking in general
terms, his mind was notably sweetened and widened by his experience;
and, resulting from his own failure to reach happiness, there awoke in
him a charity and sympathy for others, a fellow-feeling with humanity,
remarkable in one whose enthusiasm for human nature was not large, whose
ruling passion, until the circumstance of love tinctured it, had led him
by ways which the bulk of men had pronounced arid and unsatisfying. Now
this larger insight was making a finer character of him and planting,
even at the core of his professional pursuits, something deeper than is
generally to be found there. His experience, in fact, was telling upon
his work, and he began slowly to combine with the labour of the
yard-measure and the pencil, the spade and the camera, just thoughts on
the subject of those human generations who ruled the Moor aforetime, who
lived and loved and laboured there full many a day before Saxon keel
first grated on British shingle.

To Chris did Martin listen attentively. Until the present time he had
taken Will's advice and made no offer of work to Clement; but now he
determined to do so, although he knew this action must mean speedy
marriage for Ch