WHEN Kenneth Galt waked the next morning it was with the new sense of having slept long and restfully for the first time in years. The sun was streaming into his windows from the golden east; the cool air seemed crisp and invigorating; in the boughs¹ of the trees close by birds were flitting about and singing merrily. The dew-wet sward, bespangled with a myriad² of sun-born gems³, stretched away into the gauzy mist which hung over the town.

“It is glorious—glorious!” he cried, in ecstasy⁴. “She may refuse, but I shall never desist till I have won her forgiveness.”

After he had breakfasted in the big dining-room, now no longer solitary⁵, sombre, or accusing, he went directly down to Mrs. Barry’s cottage. With a strange, buoyant lightness of step he entered the little gate, fastened the latch⁶ with a calm hand, and went up the steps and rapped on the closed door, seeing, as he stood waiting, the face of Mrs. Chumley, as the washerwoman peered curiously⁷ over the fence at him from her wood-pile, where she was wielding⁸ a gapped and dull-edged axe⁹. The door was opened by Mrs. Barry, who could not disguise her surprise.

“I have come to see your daughter, Mrs. Barry,” he said, humbly¹⁰, as he stood uncovered before her. “I hope she will receive me; I have something important to say.”

“She’s not here. But don’t stand there,” the old woman said; “somebody might see you and wonder. Come into the

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