But the sense of a barrier between Gell and himself was soon wiped out by the memory of Fenella. He was free to love her at last! No more hypocrisy! No more self-denial! No more struggles between passion and duty! The past was dead. Life from that day forward was beginning again for all of them. "Was that Alick Gell in the wood with you?" asked Janet, who had come to the door to call Stowell in to tea. "Yes." "Goodness me! He must be a happy boy. He was laughing enough, anyway." III Stowell went to bed early that night, slept soundly and was up with the coming of light in the morning. The farm lads were not yet astir, but going round to the stable he saddled a horse for himself (a young chestnut mare that had been born on one of his own birthdays) and set off for a ride to relieve the intoxication of his spirits. The air was keen, but both he and his horse sniffed it with delight. As they passed out of Ballamoar the sun rose and played among the red and yellow leaves of the plantation, for the summer was going out in a blaze of glory. They crossed the Curragh, dipped into the glen, and climbed the corkscrew path to the mountain. Stowell thought he had never felt so well. And the little mare, catching the contagion of his high spirits, snorted and swung her head at every stride and dug her feet into the ringing ground. "Helloa, Molly, here we are at the top!" Looking hack he saw the flat plain below, dotted over with farms, each with its little farmhouse surrounded by its clump of sheltering trees. God, how good to think that every one of them was a home of love! Love! That was the great uniter, the great comforter, the great liberator, the great redeemer! And to think that all this had been going on since the beginning of the world! That generation after generation some boy had come up this lovely glen to court his girl! Lord, what a glorious place the world was, after all! His eyes were beaming like the sunshine, and to make his joy complete he galloped over the mountain-tops until he came to a point at which he could look down on Douglas and catch a glimpse of Fenella's home in the midst of its trees. "_Peace in her chamber, wheresoe'er it be, A holy place...._" Then back to Ballamoar at a brisk canter, with the air musical with the calls of cattle, the bleating of sheep and the songs of birds. And then breakfast for a hungry man--cowrie and eggs and fresh butter and honey and junket, which the Manx called pinjean. At three o'clock in the afternoon he was on his way to Government House, and by that time the intoxication of his high spirits had suffered a check. What had Fenella thought of his flight from the yacht? Had she believed his excuse for it? What interpretation had she put upon his intention of calling at Government Offices the following day? And the Governor--had he seen through the thin disguise of that story?