As the days and weeks went on, the sensation lessened. But when the post came in he generally remembered Sir Roderick. At least, for the first few weeks after the accident he looked for the large, crooked scrawl he had noticed on the cheque, among his correspondence. When no letter, no news came of the strange old man, he began to think of their short acquaintance as of one of those purposeless episodes which occur in the lives of most medical men. As spring blossomed into summer, he began to forget. When he had his short holiday, and was once more in his childhood’s home among the fields and woods, with flowers scenting the summer air and the birds singing all around, the remembrance of the weird old Rembrandt face on the pillow in the hospital ward came back into his mind as might some curious dream. Alas! it would have been better for Hugh Paull if indeed it could have been but a dream. Kilby was a picturesque village among the Derbyshire hills. A stream ran through the smiling little valley. It meandered through the rectory grounds. There was no regular village street. There were groups of cottages clustering together about the old inn, and around the church. The rectory was a grey stone, gabled house, in grounds that the Reverend John Paull had enlarged and improved each year since he “read himself in” twenty-seven years ago. In front of the house was a large, square lawn, with spreading beeches and straight conifers on either side. Opposite, a yew hedge divided the lawn from the beautiful flower garden with the masses of bloom bordering the winding paths. Then came the river, famous for its succulent trout, and beyond, grassy banks, a row of elms, and the sloping hills. Although Hugh missed the genial presence of his sweet-faced little mother, his father seemed determined to be cheery during his visit, and his sisters Maud and Daisy had made up their minds to be bright in their brother’s presence, so only indulged in their inevitable fits of grief in private. “Do not let—Hugh—miss me,” had been their mother’s constant exhortation during her last brief illness. “He is such a gloomy boy. Pray be cheerful with him.” Mrs. Paull herself had lived cheerfully; and as she had lived, so she died—with a smile of encouragement to those around her on her lips. To her, life was merely one scene in the eternal drama of the human soul. When the rector chose the words, “She is not dead, but sleepeth,” to be engraven on the stone at the head of her grave, he felt indeed that his Maggie was not, could not be dead. Dead? Sometimes he believed they were nearer and dearer to each other now than when for the first time he took his love into his arms and kissed her lips. Thus it was hardly a house of mourning into which Hugh came. As soon as he became accustomed to the empty chair, the absence of the kindly voice, and the sombre garments of his sisters and the maids, he successfully fought low spirits.