to look at the bridge over the Tamar and telling me how men would say to themselves, 'That's a fine piece of work. I wish I'd been the man to do it.'"

"And yet, you little hussy, now you can't see when a man's doing a fine thing. You're like all the rest of your sex, you want a handsome young buck to strut up and down; and, like an old fool, I thought I'd taught you different."

"What is it, Uncle Dickie, that Tony's going to do?" Oh, it isn't anything that'll write his name on the mastheads of sea-going vessels, and Challacombe won't put up a statue of him. It's nothing sensational, that'll send you peacocking about because you're his wife."

"Do go on, Uncle Dickie. I want to know what you mean." "My dear, in your own silly little maze of fancies, have you ever thought of how scarce water is in Challacombe in the dry summer weather? ever seen the women standing in rows in the lower town round the pumps, when they're allowed to use 'em? ever thought of whether the water's good that comes from wells with houses and a burial-ground so near ?"

"But it's been like that for years, and they say that lots of people wouldn't drink piped water, for the other's colder." "And it's now you've hit the nail: it's just against talk like that, and sillier too, that Dr. Tony's got to fight-and is going to."

"Well," said Wilmot, driven to a last vantage ground, "let him explain. It's easy enough to show we want it. Surely they'll see. I don't think there need be much of a fuss about it."

"And that just shows your ignorance. The hardest thing in all the world to bear, my dear, is stupid spite that comes from ignorance and low thoughts. It stings like the very devil, and it's that your husband'll have to face if he means to get his way."

"Why?"

"Challacombe's made up mostly of poor folk who look twice at a sixpence before they spend it; they won't want to put a farthing on the rates for what they can't see the good of. And as long as the water looks all right, they won't believe there's danger in it."

"But the railway will be open in a few months."

"Ay, that's just it, and they're hoping for more trade through visitors. That's the string your husband's got to pull. But ask yourself, how will Challacombe like to have all the world told that it hasn't a decent water supply?"

"They'll not love the man who told, I see that," said Wilmot, slowly.

"And he's your husband," said the captain, quietly. "And Tony does manage to set people's backs up, too," said Wilmot to herself.

The captain could not gainsay it.

"I will be good, I will, Uncle Dickie," she said penitently. "I've been very selfish, but Tony never said a word to me about this, and he talks so of everything else."

"Isn't that because this is more to him than the other things? He's talked to me often enough of it.",

"And I can hinder or help? I'd like that," said Wilmot, "only somehow I never feel I'm any use when I'm there with him."

The interaction of temperament, the most incalculable thing in life: when shall we understand its simplest laws? "Uncle Dick," she said after a silence, "have you ever killed a man? They say you have.”

"Killed a man, my dear," laughed he-"why, dozens of 'em."

"No, I mean really."

"Well, I've done for one, or maybe more, and rid the world of some vermin, too. Look ye here, my dear, don't

you sit too long on an addled egg like a mazed hen. 'Tis but a little, tiny step from life to death, and the souls we shove deathwards mayn't always owe us a grudge for it. There's some, you know, that the Almighty Himself is the only one who can deal with."

"I killed Archelaus, I suppose, as sure as if I'd pushed him off that cliff."

"And I killed a man in Lima, and another upon the deck of a tramp, and damned glad I did too. Wake up, my dear, I'm none so sure but what there isn't a crowd of people that would ha' been the better of it if they'd started by a real big fall into sin. It would make 'em humble and careful, and put a soul in 'em by which to understand this queer old world, if they should only learn from it that their righteousness will always be filthy rags, whatever other folks' righteousness may be. Ay, ay, I know it hurts sore, and always will, but you've to fight and live."

"Why should it have happened to me? Other women have amused themselves and done no harm. Such a little thing too."

"Of big or little, we're not in a position to judge. But you're not alone. I've never spoken of it for forty years, but back along there was a maid I cared for down in the west. I went and left her . . . and never thought what I left her to."

Wilmot slipped her hand into his.

"When I come back"-the old man dropped into his earlier speech-" they said her'd gone. . . to shame-and never told of the blackguard that sent her there. That cut me sorest, when all her folks shook me by the hand. I've always known since that there's pearls of price down in the deep water of every woman's heart, and I've seen it since in the vilest hag in an opium den."

"Didn't you ever see her again?"

"Never, though I've searched many a town; and perhaps my child. . . for 'twas a little maid. Ah, my dear, do you thank God your sin's dead."

"I will try, Uncle Dickie."

"There's a brave lass. And maybe, your own little cheeld'll pay for the poor lad that died-maimed before ever he clapt eyes on 'ee."

"Uncle Dick, do you know you've done an awful thing?" said Wilmot, with her eyes hidden. "You've taught me to look for atonement in that. And if things shouldn't be right, I shall know that there's no wiping out what I've done." "Then do something for other people's children, and go back to Challacombe to fight against the numskulls, by the side of the doctor."

"And will it all atone?"

"By the Lord, I believe so," said the captain, raising his hat solemnly.

"Then I'll go back," said Wilmot.

"And I've never had to say a word of Mrs. Rouncevell," said the captain to himself.

The next day found Wilmot at home in Challacombe, prepared to do her duty, as she sombrely told herself. It was, perhaps, hardly the frame of mind in which Dr. Tony would have wished her to return, for the consciously heroic is apt, in daily life, to be rather too bracing for weak human nature..

Yet probably there is no human situation which does not call for the exercise of the heroic spirit, for, truly seen, every corner of life is a battlefield, though it is but seldom that the big drum can be heard in the quiet places where men wrestle unseen by the main army, and where they often doubt if the general's field-glass can pierce so far; or even, as the tide of battle sways, whether there be, indeed, a general at all. Wherein lies, of course, the special danger of quiet corners.

CHAPTER IX

THE PLACE OF ́ a stone

"UGH! you ugly devil," said Dr. Borlace, with a grimace at his own reflection, "she thought you were going to kiss her-and you were, more fool you."

He held in his hand a quaint hand-mirror, set in an oak frame, carved with naked cupids carrying baskets, which a piece of good fortune in the shape of an unexpected cheque had caused him to purchase that morning. Dr. Tony had the buoyancy of temperament which always sees the coming tide of success in a few straws of good luck; and an extra number of half-crowns usually inspired him with a débonnaire jollity that filled the house either with weird ornaments, or with the smell of extra-savoury food.

To-night, the cheque, combined with the return of Wilmot, though with a dismal shadow under her eyes, had brought an elation that was, however, just at this moment, on the ebb. He flung the mirror, in disgust, across the room, where it fell against the end of the sofa and cracked right across. The doctor was superstitious enough to be alarmed at the omen, but he was still more vexed at the idea that the noise might awaken Wilmot, who was supposed to be asleep upstairs.

It was somewhere near midnight on the night of his wife's return from the North Coast. Dr. Borlace had been cooking steak for himself; a frying-pan and plates lay stranded on outlying points of the furniture. The doctor prided himself on doing work at odd times, and now, with a very sick mariner, who needed constant visits, on his