kennels, its deserted line of coops. David glanced for a moment at the drawn blinds of the Abbey. Then he crossed the footbridge and the few yards of meadow, lifted the latch of the gate and, walking up the gravel path, came to a sudden standstill. A man who was seated almost hidden by a great cluster of fox-gloves rose to his feet.

"It's you, then, lad!" he exclaimed, holding out both his hands.

"You're welcome! There's no one to the house--there won't be for a quarter of an hour--so I'll wring your hands once more. It's a queer world, this, David. You're back with me here, where I brought you up as a stripling, and yon's the Abbey. Sit you down, boy. I am not the man I was since I came here."

David Thain dragged an old-fashioned kitchen chair from the porch, and sat by his uncle's side. Richard Vont, although he was still younger than his sixty-four years, seemed to his nephew curiously changed during the last week. The hard, resolute face was disturbed. The mouth, kept so tight through the years, had weakened a little. There was a vague, almost pathetic agitation in the man's face.

"You'll take no notice of me, David," his uncle went on. "I'm honest with you. These few days have been like a great, holy dream, like something one reads of in the Scriptures but never expects to see. There's old Mary Wells--she's doing for me up there. Just a word or two of surprise, and a grip of the hand, and no more. And there's the Abbey--curse it!--not a stone gone, only the windows are blank. You see the weeds on the lawn, David? Do you mark the garden behind? They tell me there's but two gardeners there to do the work of twenty. And the drive--look at it as far as you can see--moss and weed! They're coming down in the world, these Mandeleys, David. Even this last little lawsuit, the lawyers told me, has cost the Marquis nineteen thousand pounds. God bless you for your wealth, David! It's money that counts in these days."

David produced a pouch of tobacco from his pocket and handed it over to his uncle, who filled a pipe eagerly.

"That's thoughtful of you, David," he declared. "I'd forgotten to buy any, and that's a fact, for I can't stand the village yet. You're looking strange-like, David."

"And I feel it," was the quiet answer. "Uncle, hasn't it made any difference to you, this coming back?"

"In what way?" the old man asked.

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