The parting with Lucy was bitter, but he carried her bright image in his heart, and wrote to her by every mail. In Canada he did not look at a woman, as the saying goes; true, the opportunities were scant on the lonely log-farm. Absence, distance, lent the last touch of idealisation and enchantment to his conception of Lucy. She stood to him not only for Womanhood and Purity, but for England, Home, and Beauty. Nay, the thought of her was even Culture, when the evening found him too worn with physical toil to read a page of the small library he had brought with him. He saw his way to profitable farming on his own account in a few years' time. Then Lucy would come out to him, if they should be too impatient to wait till he had made money enough to go to her. Lucy's letters did nothing to disabuse him of his ideals or his aims. They were charming, affectionate, and intellectual. Midway, in the batch he treasured more than eastern jewels, the sheets began to wear mourning for Lucy's mother. The Guardian Angel was gone--whether to continue the rôle none could say. Frank comforted the orphaned girl as best he could with epistolary kisses and condolences, and hoped she would get along pleasantly with her aunt till the necessity for that good relative vanished. And so the correspondence went on, Lucy's mind improving visibly under her lover's solicitous guidance. Then one day Redhill the elder cabled that by the death of his brother and nephew within a few days of each other, he had become Lord Redhill, and Frank consequently heir to a fine old peerage, and with an heir's income. Whereupon Frank returned forthwith from nature to civilisation. Now he could marry Lucy (and redeem mankind) immediately. Only he did not tell Lucy he was coming. He could not deny himself (or her) the pleasure of so pleasurable a surprise. III.