they strolled back to the train with a few more leisurely people. 'A drive of five miles from your Yorkshire moors at Old Lafer to the nearest station, Wonston, I suppose—a rush down England to Southampton, ten hours' pitching in a dirty sea, by our caterpillar of a train to St. Aubin's here, and finally a three miles' walk. By Jove, you must be feeling rather done up.'

'Oh no, I'm accustomed to such journeys. I did precisely the same with the exception of this final walk when I came out to Jersey five months ago and had the good fortune to fall in with Miss Hugo. You'll probably not be a man of fifty, overwhelmed with other people's business, when you marry, Ambrose. It's this walk to Rocozanne that amuses you,' he added, with a genial smile. 'You think it inconsistent with a lover's ardour that I should not go as fast as your good mare would take me. The truth is, I want an hour's leisure. When one marries a second time and is my age, and it is a young girl who is good enough to take one, the responsibilities are much greater than when two young people marry; one has more misgiving, you know, about one's wife being happy. Since I won Clothilde I have scarcely had time to realise my good fortune. Through this journey I've struggled with correspondence that would be arrears of work if left over next week. And now a walk will freshen me up and adjust my thoughts to a proper balance, since to-morrow, please God, I shall be married. My age must be the excuse for what yours takes for lukewarmness.'

'I don't think you lukewarm,' said Piton bluntly. 'But I'll tell you what, sir, you at fifty are more simple-minded than I at twenty-five.'

'Simple-minded? How? I don't understand.'

'You call a spade a spade and you think it is one,' said Piton lamely, yet with a desperate resolution that showed a serious undercurrent of thought.

'Of course, being straightforward. You would yourself.'

'Oh, certainly,' said Piton with trepidation. 'Here comes the engine,' he added with awkward haste as he jumped on to the train.

'One moment—how is she?'

'Clothilde? Very well.'

'And Anna? It's very good of you and Mr. Piton to let us carry little Anna off.'

'Yes it is,' said Piton. 'But they've never been separated though they're only half-sisters. And though Anna's my father's niece and Clothilde is not, and we should like to have her at Rocozanne, we know she'll be better with a woman; and as we've only servants about, it seems right that she should go with Clothilde. But my father has explained all this,' he added, smiling. 'It's a bit of a sore point, we begrudge her to you.'

'She must come often to Rocozanne.'

'Of course. Now we're off. Don't miss your road.'

'I know the short cuts,' said Mr. Severn, as he turned away. Piton laughed and waved his hand. Then as he leant forward and watched him walk up the platform, his face became serious. He was a good-looking young fellow. Judging from his usual expression of easy good-nature, the lines of his life had fallen in pleasant places. But now he wore a look that passed from pain to disgust and resentment.

'If ever there were a good fellow in this world, it's Severn,' he thought; 'and that's just what makes him fool enough to think himself unworthy of any woman who seems lovable. I wonder when he'll begin to see into Clothilde's genuine moral structure. Thank Heaven, he'll not be marred though he may be maimed; he's made of sterner stuff than he'll know of till the occasion comes, and he's very fond of Anna, and nothing'll spoil Anna, not even Clothilde. If I thought she would, we'd keep her at Rocozanne after all. I longed to blurt out the truth and tell him of Clothilde's engagement to that poor fellow in India. She doesn't care a straw for Severn. What heart she has is in the Punjaub; but because it's given to a poor man she plays it false. And she wrote him a letter only yesterday, in the old style! I wish Severn had heard her tell me so—such confounded coolness! A bird in the hand, et cetera. She'll keep in with Danby until the register's signed with Severn; if there were a slip at the last moment the compromising intelligence would never reach the far East, and if she didn't take up with some one else, she might wait after all. But where would be the use of telling Severn? It would only make him confoundedly miserable and scandalise my father, who thinks she's had an amicable disagreement with the Punjaub, and leave her to cajole some one else. Her beauty would do it. By Jove, she is beautiful, but she'll never look for Severn what she looked for Danby! Heaven knows what might become of her if my father refused to have her here again. She won't work as a music-teacher, not she! She's dilettante, not enthusiast. Those moors Severn talks of will be a safe place for her; her wings'll be clipped and she'll be out of the way of mischief-making. I only hope he'll soon show the master-hand and guide her by sheer force of example into honesty.'

When Mr. Severn left the station he struck up the ravine behind St. Aubin's where the road inland ran. As he passed the tumble-down, crooked old stone houses, whose gloomy dampness made them scarcely fit for cattle, various old crones and children came out to stare at him. There was not so tall a man on the island. They knew nothing of Anakims as personified in Yorkshire dalesmen. His height, his massive limbs and breadth of shoulder, his jet-black hair, fresh colour and gleaming teeth, were a revelation to them. A group of market-people waiting at the station for Corbière pressed up to the railings and made audible remarks. They were in French, however, and he did not understand. Seeing them look interested, he nodded, then raised his hat. He was less interested in them than he had been a little earlier by a water-wheel against the road which imprisoned a silvery stream that shot over the edge of a brambly bank above. A little farther on was a quarry, over whose stone he stood some moments speculating. It struck into the heart of the hill, an ochreous blotch against the dense velvetiness of the furze. A man in a blue blouse was chipping at its base. These touched at once his love of colour, and his instincts as steward for a large estate where earths and rocks were in constant consideration. There was a short cut below the quarry to St. Brelade's, but he did not take it. He and Clothilde Hugo had not taken the short cuts when together, and he remembered a point on the road which she had showed him from whence there was a glimpse of the white houses of St. Helier's gleaming against the amethystine sea in a land-locked setting. He went round by the road and loitered a little, thinking of her.

How good it was of her to take him! What faith she showed in him! He fully realised the isolation of the home to which marriage with him would condemn her. He was not only much older than she but was impressed by the sense of their different social positions. He had risen from small tenant-farmer to the stewardship of Admiral Marlowe's estates, and she was of a good old family that ranked high among the aristocracy of proud Guernsey. He could give her comfort but not luxury. She was beautiful, she was clever. Would she feel herself buried at Old Lafer, or would his affection atone for the loss of social congenialities and throw a glamour over the eeriness of winter storms and the loneliness of summer sunshine? The innate poetry of his nature had enthroned her as a flower among flowers at Rocozanne. He should never forget the wealth of bloom in the garden when he entered it on his first