gone, dreams were unreal and vanishing
as the mist that crawled along the bog-pools at night.

At the crest of the little hill, just where it sloped down to the
village, he stood and looked back.

Good God! Was he seeing aright! The figure of a man, who in the gray
gloaming looked well-dressed, was approaching Mysie, and she was slowly
moving to meet him. A few steps more, and the man had the girl, he
thought, in his arms, and was kissing her where they stood.

Was he dreaming? What was the meaning of all this? "Oh, Christ!" he
groaned. "What does it all mean?" and he rubbed his eyes and looked
again, then sat down, all his pride and anger raging within him as he
watched, kindling the jungle instinct within him into a raging fire, to
fight for his mate--his by right of class and association. He doubled
back, as the two figures turned in the direction of the copse--the
resolve in his mind to go back and forcibly tear Mysie from this unknown
stranger. He would fight for her. She was his, and he was prepared to
assert his right of possession before all the world.

In a mad fury he started forward, a raging anger in his heart, striding
along in quick, determined, relentless steps, his blood jumping and his
energy roused, and all the madness of a strong nature coursing through
him; but after a few yards he hesitated, stopped, and then turned back.

After all, Mysie must have made an appointment with this man. She
evidently wanted him, and that was her reason for asking to be left
alone.

"Oh, God!" he groaned again, sitting down. "This is hellish!" and he
began to turn over the whole business in his mind once more.

Long he sat, and the darkness fell over the moor, matching the darkness
that brooded over his heart and mind. He heard the moor-birds crying in
restlessness, and saw the clouds piling themselves up, and come creeping
darkly over the higher ground, bringing a threat of rain in their wake.
The moan in the wind became louder, presaging a storm; but still he sat
or lay upon the rough, withered grass, fighting out his battle, meeting
the demons of despair and gloom, and the legions of pain and misery, in
greater armies than ever he had met them before.

Again he groaned, as his ear caught the plaintive note of a widowed
partridge, which sat behind him upon a grassy knoll of turf, crying out
on the night air, an ache in every cry, the grief and sorrow of his
wounded, breaking heart.

It seemed to Robert that