nswer of some sort from the girl to whom it was
addressed, but it was met by the same dead silence that had followed the
other suggestions.

Then somewhere near at hand a gate creaked loudly, there was the sound of
a key being turned in a padlock, and with his back towards the sunlit
fields from which he had come some ten minutes previously, the tall, thin
figure of an old man with a flowing white beard and with an Inverness
cloak hanging from his spare shoulders strode over the grass in the
direction of the thick clump of trees from which the unseen voice had
proceeded.

Though he took no pains to render them inaudible, his footsteps made no
sound on the grass, and as he approached the same voice spoke again,
unconscious of his near presence.

"Margaret Anstruther," it went on, "do you not then wish to do any of the
nice things I have told you about? Do you like sitting here by yourself,
when outside in the world real things are happening, and there are real
people to whom you might be talking, and whom you might know? Are you
happy? Tell me that."

The old man came to a pause, as abrupt as it was involuntary. Had any one
been there to see his face at that moment they would have perceived that
he was finding it difficult to believe the evidence of his ears. Almost
against his will it seemed he waited to hear the answer to that question,
for his obvious impulse had been to stride on and confront the speaker,
on whom his cold blue eyes, lightened now with a gleam of anger, rested.
She was sitting at the foot of a big elm-tree, with her back resting
against its trunk and her hands loosely clasped round her knees. She was
very young, and the forlorn droop of her figure and the pathetic
expression that was at that moment depicted upon her face made her look
even younger than her years, which numbered barely eighteen.

"Oh, Eleanor Humphreys!" she said, and her clear hazel eyes brimmed over
with tears as she spoke. "I am very, very miserable. Nobody loves me, and
I have nobody to love except you, of course, Eleanor Humphreys, and
sometimes I cannot make believe that you are real at all."

"Margaret!" said the old man, breaking into speech at last, and in a very
harsh voice. "What folly is this? To whom are you talking? Who is this
Eleanor Humphreys? Where is she?"

[Illustration: "MARGARET," SAID THE OLD MAN, BREAKING INTO SPEECH AT
LAST, AND IN A VERY HARSH VOICE, "WHAT FOLLY IS THIS?"]

And with both hands resting