She closed her eyes and went on: “Do you hear that--that patter like soft rain? That's oats nearly ripe for harvest. Do you hear that, then--that pit-a-pat, like sheep going by on the street? That's wheat, just ready. And there--that whiss, whiss, whiss? That's barley.” She opened her eyes: “Don't you think I'm very clever?” Philip felt an impulse to lean over the wheel and put his arms about the girl's neck. “Take care,” she cried merrily; “your horse is shying.” He gazed at her face, lit up in the white moonlight. “How bright and happy you seem, Kate!” he said with a shiver; and then he laid one hand on the gig rail. Her eyelids quivered, her mouth twitched, and she answered gaily, “Why not? Aren't you? You ought to be, you know. How glorious to succeed? It means so much--new things to see, new houses to visit, new pleasures, new friends----” Her joyous tones broke down in a nervous laugh at that last word, and he replied, in a faltering voice, “That may be true of the big world over yonder, Kate, but it isn't so in a little island like ours. To succeed here is like going up the tower of Castle Rushen with some one locking the doors on the stone steps behind you. At every storey the room becomes less, until at the top you have only space to stand alone. Then, if you should ever come down again, there's but one way for you--over the battlements with a crash.” She looked up at him with startled eyes, and his own were large and full of trouble. They were going through Kirk Michael by the house of the Deemster, who was ill, and both drew rein and went slowly. Some acacias in the garden slashed their broadswords in the night air, and a windmill behind stood out against the moon like a gigantic bat. The black shadow of the horses stepped beside them. “Are you feeling lonely to-night, Philip?” “I'm feeling----” “Yes?” “I'm feeling as if the dead and the living, the living and the dead--oh, Kate, Kate, I don't know what I'm feeling.” She put her hand caressingly on the top of his hand. “Never mind, dear,” she said softly; “I'll stand by you. You shan't be _alone_.” XVIII. It was midday, then, on the tropic seas, and the horizon was closing in with clouds as of blood and vapours of stifling heat. A steamship was rolling in a heavy swell, under winds that were as hot as gusts from an open furnace. Under its decks a man lay in an atmosphere of fever and the sickening odour of bandages and stale air. Above the throb of the engines and the rattle of the rudder chain he heard a step going by his open door, and he called in a feeble voice that was cheerful and almost merry, but yet the voice of a homesick boy-- “How many days from home, engineer?” “Not more than twenty now.” “Put on steam, mate; put it on. Wish I could be skipping below and stoking up for you like mad.”