ing out of audience....

In an instant the man was transfigured.

"The trumpets!" he cried hoarsely. "The trumpets! Didn't you hear
them?" The light in his eyes was fanatic. Instinctively Valerie
shrank away. Regardless, he let her go. "I forgot. Gramarye--I'm
pledged to her. It's too late, Valerie. Oh, why did you come?" He
buried his face in his hands. "You'll never understand," he muttered.
"I know you never will. It's no good--no good...." Suddenly he stood
upright and took off his hat. Then he smiled very tenderly and shook
his head. "It's too late, Valerie--my sweet--my darling.... Too
late...."

He turned and strode down the track towards the tottering bridge.

For a moment Patch stood looking from him to the girl, uncertain and
puzzled. Then he went scampering in Anthony's wake.

* * * * *

"As soon as you've finished, Lyveden, we'll have that fir down. It's
the only way. With that list on her, she may go any day. And, when
she does, as like as not she'll push half the bank into the road."

Anthony, who was munching bread and meat, nodded agreement. His
employer got up and strolled in the direction from which the crunch of
wheels upon a rough road argued the approach of a supply of posts and
rails.

The fence about the estate was going up.

It was indeed high time. What was left of the old paling was in evil
case. Worm and rot had corrupted with a free hand. There was hardly a
chain, all told, that merited repair. So Gramarye was to have a new
girdle. For the last week Winchester and his little band had been
working at nothing else. A spell of fine weather favouring them, the
work flew. Master and men worked feverishly, but for once in a way,
without relish. The industry of the gnome was still there, but it had
become nervous.

The reason for this must be made clear.

Always, till now, the little company had laboured in secret. The
thick, dark, lonely woods of Gramarye had sheltered all they did. No
strange, unsympathetic eyes had ever peered at their zeal, curious and
hostile. This was as well. They had--all ten of them--a freemasonry
which the World would not understand. They were observing rites which
it was not seemly that the World should watch. Hitherto they had
toiled in a harbour at which the World did not touch. Knowing naught
else, they had come to take their privacy for granted. Now suddenly
this precious postulate had been w