Gregory walked long in the Scotch garden with his eyes on the stars. One, larger than all the rest, over the larches, shone on him ironically, for it was the star of love. And on his beat between the yew-trees that, living before Pendyces came to Worsted Skeynes, would live when they were gone, he cooled his heart in the silver light of that big star. The irises restrained their perfume lest it should whip his senses; only the young larch-trees and the far fields sent him their fugitive sweetness through the dark. And the same brown owl that had hooted when Helen Bellew kissed George Pendyce in the conservatory hooted again now that Gregory walked grieving over the fruits of that kiss. His thoughts were of Mr. Barter, and with the injustice natural to a man who took a warm and personal view of things, he painted the Rector in colours darker than his cloth. '.ndelicate, meddlesome,' he thought. 'How dare he speak of her like that!' Mr. Paramor's voice broke in on his meditations. “Still cooling your heels? Why did you play the deuce with us in there?” “I hate a sham,” said Gregory. “This marriage of my ward's is a sham. She had better live honestly with the man she really loves!” “So you said just now,” returned Mr. Paramor. “Would you apply that to everyone?” “I would.” “Well,” said Mr. Paramor with a laugh, “there is nothing like an idealist for making hay! You once told me, if I remember, that marriage was sacred to you!” “Those are my own private feelings, Paramor. But here the mischief's done already. It is a sham, a hateful sham, and it ought to come to an end!” “That's all very well,” replied Mr. Paramor, “but when you come to put it into practice in that wholesale way it leads to goodness knows what. It means reconstructing marriage on a basis entirely different from the present. It's marriage on the basis of the heart, and not on the basis of property. Are you prepared to go to that length?” “I am.” “You're as much of an extremist one way as Barter is the other. It's you extremists who do all the harm. There's a golden mean, my friend. I agree that something ought to be done. But what you don't see is that laws must suit those they are intended to govern. You're too much in the stars, Vigil. Medicine must be graduated to the patient. Come, man, where's your sense of humour? Imagine your conception of marriage applied to Pendyce and his sons, or his Rector, or his tenants, and the labourers on his estate.” “No, no,” said Gregory; “I refuse to believe----”