to attempt to see her.

It was a preposterous request, and he battled against it with all his might, only to find that the fates were on her side. For, although he wrote stormy, heart-breaking letters, although he battered at her doors, his letters remained unanswered, and all that he could hear was that Miss Dalrymple was ill and would see no one. This made him worse. Her father was dead, brothers she had none; Lady Dalrymple, her step-mother, an inconsequent careless woman of the world, who had shrugged her shoulders when Anne announced her intention of marrying Hugh Forbes, admitted him to her boudoir, and told him, with another shrug, that she could neither interfere nor offer an explanation. Anne had acted throughout on her own responsibility; as she had not opposed when she disapproved, he could not expect her to take part against her judgment.

“How was I to fight such an argument?”

Hugh asked Wareham, not once but twenty times. The first time he was answered by a question whether he had never met the girl anywhere? “Was I going to insult her in public!” groaned Hugh, and his friend liked him the better for manly self-restraint when he had reason for being distraught. He had avoided society and nursed his misery, exaggerating it, perhaps, but acting gallantly. Wareham could not but reach the conclusion that he had been abominably treated. Yet where lay the remedy? Patience had to be offered in draughts, and was turned from with loathing. This went on until even Wareham grew weary of repetition, and was not sorry when Hugh’s sister came up to town, and appeared eager for confidences. With the belief that his friend would be the better for a change of consolers, Wareham resolved to carry out a vague plan, and go to Norway for three or four weeks. And there, as has been seen, he at once found himself confronted with Miss Dalrymple.

Naturally, she now occupied his thoughts. He had sent a telegram to Hugh on arrival, in compliance with a promise he had made to let him know if he at any time became acquainted with Miss Dalrymple’s movements; a promise made idly, and already regretted. To-night he pieced together his impressions.

They were as unfavourable as might have been expected. The signs in her face he had already read against her, and her composure almost shocked him. He was certain, from the exuberance of Hugh’s friendship, that his own name must be familiar to Miss Dalrymple; and, considering her tacit acknowledgment to Hugh that she had treated him very ill, a woman whose heart was what a womans should be, must have felt and betrayed uneasiness at finding herself face to face with the dearest friend of the man she had jilted. Miss Dalrymple, however, had shown no symptom of feeling. She had treated him as if he had never so much as touched her thoughts, and to do Wareham justice, it was friendship, not vanity, which resented the indifference. He thought it horrible that a woman should be so cold.

Pride, also, he read accusingly. In his own mind he believed Hugh to have been flung over because she had grown discontented with his position. That she had yielded primarily, Wareham interpreted as due to the young fellow’s strong personal charm, perhaps to weariness of other men. It was an impulse, not love; and it was not powerful enough for a strain. He depreciated her beauty; who cares for half-shut eyes? He was not sure that Millie Ravenhill was not prettier; at any rate, he was certain that she was more attractive.

When conclusions stand up before us in such mighty good order, the chances are that we have always kept them ready made. This did not strike Wareham, sifter of causes though he might be; he set them down to acuteness of observation, and credited them with impartiality. It vexed him the more to be thrust by circumstances into a sort of companionship with Miss Dalrymple, whom of all women he would have avoided. He would take the first opportunity to break away, but when? For in Western Norway, where there is but one short railway, it often happens that you must leave when you can, not when you will, and at Stavanger this means once in the twenty-four hours. Imagine the sensation, nineteenth-century Englishman! What annoyance! what repose! Whether he would or no, he must make up his mind to journey as far as Sand, perhaps Osen, perhaps even Naes, with all the others who had landed from the Eldorado. After, he might go on by himself, and this consolation sent him off to bed.

When he met the Ravenhills in the morning, he found that Mrs Ravenhill’s inexhaustible energy had carried her out sketching, and brought her back hungry. She vowed that the place was charming, and after they had breakfasted—waited upon by a girl in Hardanger dress, cut-away scarlet bodice, beaded stomacher and belt, with white chemisette, sleeves, and apron, and fair hair hanging in a long plait—insisted upon bearing them off to prove her words. And, indeed, though there is nothing striking in the town itself, it was impossible not to feel its bright pleasantness. The sun shone gaily, the sweet pure air made every breath delight; even in July there was a fragrant freshness abroad, such as only comes to lands where spring and summer flutter down as fleeting visitors, and we cannot do enough to welcome them. All the houses are painted, whitened, and decked with flowers; they have not the lazy, sunburnt, picturesque charm of the south, but under the delicate northern sky there is a quiet yet vigorous cheerfulness about them. Wareham, who had seen Eastern splendours, was conscious of this gentle quality, and liked it.

They wandered round the busy harbour, into the cathedral, with its Norman pillars, and great impressive barbaric pulpit. The minister came out as they went in, a long black figure with a tall hat, a Puritan ruff, and a kind face, who looked as if he had stepped out of a story-book. Afterwards they strolled on, not much caring where, between hedges of sweet-briar, past boggy places waving with cotton rush, and climbed a hill to see the interlacing fjords, and the distant mountains veiled with advancing mist, and the women making their hay in the fields. Millie, who had not cared very much for Norway before she came, having something of a girl’s indifference to the unknown, was discovering delightful things around and before her—were they not rather blossoming in her heart? As for Wareham, he, too, became sanguine. So far, the Martyns were avoided, and with good luck the annoyance of their presence might be reduced to a minimum.

Three people content! What good sprite was here, and what mischief lurked behind? The three, equally unconscious of their luck and their danger, looked at all they could see, went back to the inn for more salmon, and steamed away down the fjords towards Sand.

An hour afterwards they were on the upper deck of the little steamer. Grey mists had gathered in their scouts, and swept up, chilling the air and battling with the sunshine. Now one, now the other gained the day. Miss Dalrymple walked about with Colonel Martyn. Wareham believed she shared his own disinclination to meet, and, under the circumstances, disinclination was more creditable than indifference. His hard thoughts of her softened slightly—very slightly. Mutual avoidance would prevent difficulties which might otherwise prove awkward in the coming days. Meanwhile, as yet nothing had been said or done which foreboded trouble.

It pleased Millie to treat Wareham as if he were responsible for anything lacking in the beauty of the country, and as the wide entrance to the Sand fjord is uninteresting, and a cold wind, nipping in from a bleak sea, chilled the landscape, he became the butt of many mock reproaches. Wrapped in a fur cloak, and barricaded behind an umbrella, she vowed there was nothing to see. Perhaps there was not much. But