He asked after Lup. He would sail to-morrow, it seemed. They had had a letter, saying a last good-bye after the most circumscribed method of good-byes. Lanty had the letter to read, and wondered how long it had taken him to frame the clipped sentences. At the bottom of the page, far below the abrupt signature, three words were scribbled, as if jerked into being by some ghost-hand gripping his elbow. Almost indecipherable, they evolved themselves on inspection into “Wait of me,” and no more. Completely out of touch with the letter both in spirit and position, they gave the impression that the writer might have sealed the cover without ever knowing they were there. Mrs. Whinnerah saw the agent’s eyes on the message, and smiled faintly. “There’s that as waits for nobody,” she said enigmatically, and turned her face to the window. And again the thought came to him, as it had come, months before, that she saw what no other eye could envisage. The old couple walked with him to the fence, and there he bade them farewell. “I’ll be back again before long,” he said cheerily, shaking each by the hand. “I’ll be looking you up again soon”--and knew not what truth he spoke. So they parted, with mutual kindly smile and thought and word; and as they turned from each other at last, a magpie fluttered out of the fence and stood between them, lonely and alone on the alone and lonely road. Young Rowly came out from Ladyford at his hail, and his sister behind him. Mother and father were away for the day, it seemed. Francey met him with her usual pleasant manner. Lup’s departure had left her apparently untouched, he thought. Perhaps, after all, it had been best for him to go. “Have you seen Bracken Holliday, lately?” she asked, as he put a foot into the boat, a subtle change coming over her tone. Some undercurrent of sympathy made Lanty start, realising that the man had been in his mind, also. “Why, no!” he answered, steadying himself in the boat, and looking at her instead of crossing to the stern. “What’s his Loftiness been doing with himself? Getting engaged, or making ready to stand for the County? I hear he was a great man at election-time.” Young Rowly looked up from his seat with a ripple of mirth running over his clear, young face. “Nothing o’ _that_ sort! He’s got religion. He’s taken to going to church!” “Not just Sundays, to show off the fit of his coat,” Francey explained. “He’s done that, all along. Rowly means Lent services--weekday services. Brack’s there, every time!” “But what’s taken him? Some girl gone back on him? Or has he lost another pig or something?” She looked down at the sand. There were words on her lips, plainly enough, but she did not utter them. Rowly, however, supplied the deficiency with the same happy haste. “If you want to know, sir, he’s praying for _you_!” “For me? What in creation----! For _me_?”