nd's absence so long, is a fable of old
times; or rather say Earl Guy never wedded his wife, knowing that
one she loved better than him was alive all the time she had
believed him to be dead.

CHAPTER XLIII

THE UNKNOWN

A few days before that on which Philip arrived at Monkshaven, Kester
had come to pay Sylvia a visit. As the earliest friend she had, and
also as one who knew the real secrets of her life, Sylvia always
gave him the warm welcome, the cordial words, and the sweet looks in
which the old man delighted. He had a sort of delicacy of his own
which kept him from going to see her too often, even when he was
stationary at Monkshaven; but he looked forward to the times when he
allowed himself this pleasure as a child at school looks forward to
its holidays. The time of his service at Haytersbank had, on the
whole, been the happiest in all his long monotonous years of daily
labour. Sylvia's father had always treated him with the rough
kindness of fellowship; Sylvia's mother had never stinted him in his
meat or grudged him his share of the best that was going; and once,
when he was ill for a few days in the loft above the cow-house, she
had made him possets, and nursed him with the same tenderness which
he remembered his mother showing to him when he was a little child,
but which he had never experienced since then. He had known Sylvia
herself, as bud, and sweet promise of blossom; and just as she was
opening into the full-blown rose, and, if she had been happy and
prosperous, might have passed out of the narrow circle of Kester's
interests, one sorrow after another came down upon her pretty
innocent head, and Kester's period of service to Daniel Robson, her
father, was tragically cut short. All this made Sylvia the great
centre of the faithful herdsman's affection; and Bella, who reminded
him of what Sylvia was when first Kester knew her, only occupied the
second place in his heart, although to the child he was much more
demonstrative of his regard than to the mother.

He had dressed himself in his Sunday best, and although it was only
Thursday, had forestalled his Saturday's shaving; he had provided
himself with a paper of humbugs for the child--'humbugs' being the
north-country term for certain lumps of toffy, well-flavoured with
peppermint--and now he sat in the accustomed chair, as near to the
door as might be, in Sylvia's presence, coaxing the little one, who
was not quite sure of his identity, t