came, the clouds were drifting over the
sky; and the day was a wet gray fringy mass of wind and rain and cloud,
tossing trees, and corn hard bested.

He rose and dragged himself away. He had thrown himself upon the grass,
and had burned there till his exhausted feelings lay like smouldering
fire under the pale ashes of the dawn.

When Kate made her appearance at breakfast she looked bright and cold.
She had told his mother about last night, though how much he could only
guess. When he asked her whether he might not read to her, she only
said,

"If you like."

Whereupon he did not like.

It was a dreary day. He crept about the house like a child in disgrace,
and the darkness seemed an age in coming. When the candles were
brought, he went to bed; and when his mother went up, she found him
asleep, but feverish. When he woke he was delirious.

For a week there was nothing but wet and windy weather. Alec was in
bed. Kate was unhappy. Mrs Forbes was anxious.

The corn was badly lodged. Patches lay prone, tangled, spiky, and
rough; and it was evident that if sunshine, strong, healthy sunshine,
did not soon break out, the wretched mooncalf-prediction of Murdoch
Malison would come true, for the corn, instead of ripening, would start
a fresh growth, and the harvest would be a very bad one indeed, whether
the people of Glamerton repented or not.

But after a grievous week, that blessed sunshine did come. The corn
rose up from its low estate, looked at the sun, gathered heart, and
began to ripen diligently.

But Alec was very ill, and did not see Kate for weeks.

Through his wanderings--so strangely does the thousand times
o'erwritten palimpsest of the brain befool the mind and even the
passions by the redawning of old traces--he talked on about Annie and
their schooldays with Mr Malison, and never mentioned Kate.

Annie went often to inquire after him, and Mrs Forbes behaved to her
with her old kindness--just a little diluted by anxiety and the
possession of Kate.

When Annie thought with herself what she could do for him, she could
never think of anything except saying _sangs_ to him. But the time for
that was long gone by. So, like many other devotions, hers found no
outlet but in asking how he was.

At length, one day, he was brought down to the dining-room and laid
upon the sofa. Then for the first time since his illness he saw Kate,
He looked in her face pitifully and kissed her hand. She put her face
down