Thus in a blaze of appropriate piety the star of Andrew Walkingshaw set. There is small probability of his ever becoming an Example again. At present it is his arduous task to live down, by the austerity of his demeanor and the judicious expenditure of his wife's income, the suspicions connected with the apparition at his dinner party, and his subsequent act of inexplicable magnanimity in divesting himself of his fortune and handing it to his brother and sister. It is with the greatest regret that the editor of these few simple facts finds himself unable to cap with a suitable reward the career of well-principled respectability so unfortunately interrupted; but his obligations to the illogical truth are peremptory. * * * * * "My dear old boys and jolly good sportsmen, and all the rest of it," said Heriot jovially, "don't mention it--don't mention it. What can you do to show your dashed gratitude? There's only one thing; one blooming favor I ask of you: send me to a good public school!" CHAPTER VII The devious lane was filled with sunshine; the studio being lighted only from the north was filled instead with happiness. The same two sat there; but to-day she was no longer so demurely clad and all the aches and weariness were gone, and he no longer fumed. "Is this better than scrubbing the floor of a ward?" he smiled. "Buying a trousseau is harder work than you realize, Lucas," she answered, with that touch of reproof by which all good women remind man gently but daily that it is her part to suffer, his to misunderstand. There followed a space of happy silence, and then she said-- "Didn't I tell you that everything would come right if we waited?" "Yes," he admitted, "that was one of your good guesses." She raised her delicate brows. "Aren't you happy _now_?" "Good heavens! I should think so." "Then be more grateful, dear," she smiled. Rapturously he confessed he had erred, and was even sufficiently in love to think he perceived how. "I positively must go now," she said in a little, and, despite his protestations, rose. "Shall we walk?" he asked. "Haven't you a cab call?" "But you haven't been out of a hansom all day, and it's only ten minutes--" "Oh, bother the expense!" she cried. "I believe in being sensibly economical, but not in being _close_." Again he cheerfully accepted the gentle rebuke as the reproof his inconsistency deserved. And so off they whirled in a hansom. At that very same hour, far, far to the northward, the winter sun was struggling in gleams through the pine-tops and falling in patches on the moss. For an instant one patch lit the hat of straw and gentle face of Ellen Berstoun; and though it was but a small patch, it also lit a large tweed cap a few inches higher up. Beneath the cap a voice murmured-- "Ellen!" No more letters came to her now from India; and no longer she walked alone.