"_Here where the ocean is whitened with foam, Here stood a city, an altar, a home. Hark to the bells that ring under the sea, Salve Regina! Salve Regina! Love is the Queen for you and for me, Salve, Salve Regina!_" After that they laughed again, and in sheer gaiety of heart, sang every nonsensical thing they could think about, until, being breathless and hoarse and compelled to stop, Fenella said, "I wonder what those people in the Court-house would think if they could see their great man now! But I suppose there has never been a great man since the beginning of the world but some woman has known him for what he really is--just a big boy!" At three o'clock in the afternoon luncheon was over at Government House; the Governor and the Attorney-General had gone off to smoke; Miss Green, like a wise woman, had betaken herself to her room, and Fenella and Stowell were alone. "Now you must get away to Ballamoar. I promised Janet to send you back in time. Some kind of welcome home, you know." But Stowell stood over her (she was at the piano) and whispered, "When?" She pretended not to understand him, and again, and in a more emphatic voice, he demanded, "When?" She was compelled to comprehend at last, and said that if all went well, and he behaved himself, and her father approved, a month that day, perhaps .... no, two months.... "Done!" A few minutes later they were in the porch for their last parting. He was holding her in a long embrace. He felt like Jacob who had waited so long for Rachel. He would never be entirely happy until she was wholly his. She laughed--a nervous and palpitating laugh. "Rachel indeed? Take care it isn't Leah in the morning, Sir." But seeing the cloud that crossed his face at that word, she kissed him of herself, saying they belonged to each other already and nothing could ever separate them. "Nothing?" "Nothing!" And then a long tremulous kiss and he was gone. III Home! He had reached the top of the mountain road, and the setting sun was striking him full in the face. To right and left, before and behind, across the broad waters, stood the dim ghosts of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. But what did he care for these greater scenes? Down yonder was Ballamoar, and to him, as to his father, it was enough to be Deemster of Man and Judge of his own people. News of his home-coming had been telegraphed from Douglas, and when his car shot out of the glen the church bells were ringing all over the Curagh. People working in the fields climbed the hedges to wave as he went by, and feeble old men came to the doors of the cottages to lift up the hooked handles of their sticks to him. On reaching the entrance to Ballamoar he found a crowd waiting at the gate, and a streamer from post to post, saying-- WELCOME TO HIS FATHER'S SON.