A month after Vane said good-by to Kitty he and Carroll alighted one evening at a little station in northern England. Brown moors stretched about it, for the heather had not bloomed yet, rolling back in long slopes to the high ridge which cut against leaden thunder-clouds in the eastern sky. To the westward, they fell away; and across a wide, green valley smooth-backed heights gave place in turn to splintered crags and ragged pinnacles etched in gray and purple on a vivid saffron glow. The road outside the station gleamed with water, and a few big drops of rain came splashing down, but there was a bracing freshness in the mountain air.

The train went on, and Vane stood still, looking about him with a poignant recollection of how he had last waited on that platform, sick at heart, but gathering his youthful courage for the effort that he must make. It all came back to him—the dejection, the sense of loneliness—for he was then going out to the Western Dominion in which he had not a friend. Now he was returning, moderately prosperous and successful; but once again the feeling of loneliness was with him—most of those whom he had left behind had made a longer journey than he had done. Then he noticed an elderly man, in rather shabby livery, approaching, and he held out his hand with a smile of pleasure.

"You haven't changed a bit, Jim!" he exclaimed. "Have you got the young gray in the new cart outside?"

"T' owd gray was shot twelve months since," the man replied. "Broke his leg comin' down Hartop Bank. New car was sold off, done, two or t'ree years ago."

"That's bad news. Anyway, you're the same."

"A bit stiffer in the joints, and maybe a bit sourer," was the answer.
Then the man's wrinkled face relaxed. "I'm main glad to see thee, Mr.
Wallace. Master wad have come, only he'd t' gan t' Manchester suddenly."

Vane helped him to place their baggage into the trap and then bade him sit behind; and as he gathered up the reins, he glanced at the horse and harness. The one did not show the breeding of the gray he remembered, and there was no doubt that the other was rather the worse for wear. They set off down the descending road, which wound, unconfined, through the heather, where the raindrops sparkled like diamonds. Farther down, they ran in between rough limestone walls with gleaming spar in them, smothered here and there in trailing brambles and clumps of fern, while the streams that poured out from black gaps in the peat and flowed beside the road flashed with coppery gold in the evening light. It was growing brighter ahead of them, though inky clouds still clung to the moors behind.

By and by, ragged hedges, rent and twisted by the winds, climbed up to meet them, and, clattering down between the straggling greenery, they crossed a river sparkling over banks of gravel. After that, there was a climb, for the country rolled in ridge and valley, and the crags ahead, growing nearer, rose in more rugged grandeur against the paling glow. Carroll gazed about him in open appreciation as they drove.

"This little compact country is really wonderful, in its way!" he exclaimed. "There's so much squeezed into it, even leaving out your towns. Parts of it are like Ontario—-the southern strip I mean—with the plow-land, orchards and homesteads sprinkled among the woods and rolling ground. Then your Midlands are like the prairie, only that they're greener—there's the same sweep of grass and the same sweep of sky, and this"—he gazed at the rugged hills rent by winding dales—"is British Columbia on a miniature scale."

"Yes," agreed Vane; "it isn't monotonous."

"Now you have hit it! That's the precise difference. We've three belts of country, beginning at Labrador and running west—rock and pine scrub, level prairie, and ranges piled on ranges beyond the Rockies. Hundreds of leagues of each of them, and, within their limits, all the same. But this country's mixed. You can get what you like—woods, smooth grass-land, mountains—in a few hours' ride."

Vane smiled.

"Our people and their speech and habits are mixed, too. There's more difference between county and county in thirty miles than there is right across your whole continent. You're cast in the one mold."

"I'm inclined to think it's a good one," laughed Carroll. "What's more, it has set its stamp on you. The very way your clothes hang proclaims that you're a Westerner."

Vane laughed good-humoredly; but as they clattered through a sleepy hamlet with its little, square-towered church overhanging a brawling river, his face grew grave. Pulling up the horse, he handed the reins to Carroll.

"This is the first stage of my pilgrimage. I won't keep you five minutes."

He swung himself down, and the groom motioned to him.

"West of the tower, Mr. Wallace; just before you reach the porch."

Vane passed through the wicket in the lichened limestone wall, and there was a troubled look in his eyes when he came back and took the reins again.

"I went away in bitterness—and I'm sorry now," he said. "The real trouble was unimportant; I think it was forgotten. Every now and then the letters came; but the written word is cold. There are things that can never be set quite right in this world."

Carroll made no comment, though he knew that if it had not been for the bond between them his comrade would not have spoken so. They drove on in silence for a while, and then, as they entered a deep, wooded dale, Vane turned to him again.

"I've been taken right back into the old days to-night; days in England, and afterward those when we worked on the branch road beneath the range. There's not a boy among the crowd in the sleeping-shack I can't recall—first, wild Larry, who taught me how to drill and hid my rawness from the Construction Boss."

"He lent me his gum-boots when the muskeg stiffened into half-frozen slush," Carroll interrupted him.

"And was smashed by the snowslide," Vane went on. "Then there was Tom, from the boundary country. He packed me back a league to camp the day I chopped my right foot; and went down in the lumber schooner off Flattery. Black Pete, too, who held on to you in the rapid when we were running the bridge-logs through. It was in firing a short fuse that he got his discharge," He raised his free hand, with a wry smile. "Gone on—with more of their kind after them; a goodly company. Why are we left prosperous? What have we done?"

Carroll made no response. The question was unanswerable, and after a while Vane abruptly began to talk about their business in British Columbia. It passed the time; and he had resumed his usual manner when he pulled up where a stile path led across a strip of meadow.

"You can drive round; we'll be there before you," he said to the groom as he got down.

Carroll and he crossed the meadow. Passing around a clump of larches they came suddenly into sight of an old gray house with a fir wood rolling down the hillside close behind it. The building was long and low, weather-worn and stained with lichens where the creepers and climbing roses left the stone exposed. The bottom row of mullioned windows opened upon a terrace, and in front of the terrace ran a low wall with a broad coping on which were placed urns bright with geraniums. It was pierced by an opening approached by shallow stairs on which an iridescent peacock stood, and in front of all that stretched a sweep of lawn.

A couple of minutes later, a lady met them in the wide hall, and held out her hand to Vane. She was middle-aged, and had once been handsome, but now there were wrinkles about her eyes, which had a hint of hardness in them, and her lips were thin. Carroll noticed that they closed tightly when she was not speaking.

"Welcome home, Wallace," she said effusively. "It should not be difficult to look upon the Dene as that—you were here so often once upon a time."

"Thank you," was the response. "I felt tempted to ask Jim to drive me round by Low Wood; I wanted to see the place again."

"I'm glad you didn't. The house is shut up and going to pieces. It would have been depressing to-night."

Vane presented Carroll. Mrs. Chisholm's manner was gracious, but for no particular reason Carroll wondered whether she would have extended the same welcome to his comrade had the latter not come back the discoverer of a profitable mine.

"Tom was sorry he couldn't wait to meet you, but he had to leave for
Manchester on some urgent business," she apologized.

Just then a girl with disordered hair and an unusual length of stocking displayed beneath her scanty skirt came up to them.

"This is Mabel," said Mrs. Chisholm. "I hardly think you will remember her."

"I've carried her across the meadow."

The girl greeted the strangers demurely, and favored Vane with a critical gaze.

"So you're Wallace Vane—who floated the Clermont Mine! Though I don't remember you, I've heard a good deal about you lately. Very pleased to make your acquaintance!"

Vane's eyes twinkled as he shook hands with her. Her manner was quaintly formal, but he fancied that there was a spice of mischief hidden behind it. Carroll, watching his hostess, surmised that her daughter's remarks had not altogether pleased her. She chatted with them, however, until the man who had driven them appeared with their baggage, when they were shown their respective rooms.

Vane was the first to go down. Reaching the hall, he found nobody there, though a clatter of dishes and a clink of silver suggested that a meal was being laid out in an adjoining room. Sitting down near the hearth, he looked about him. The house was old; a wide stairway with a quaintly carved balustrade of dark oak ran up one side and led to a landing, also fronted with ponderous oak rails. The place was shadowy, but a stream of light from a high window struck athwart one part of it and fell upon the stairs.

Vane's eyes rested on many objects that he recognized, but as his glance traveled to and fro it occurred to him that much of what he saw conveyed a hint that economy was needful. Part of the rich molding of the Jacobean mantel had fallen away, and patches of the key pattern bordering the panels beneath it had broken off, though he decided that a clever cabinet-maker could have repaired the damage in a day. There were one or two choice rugs on the floor, but they were threadbare; the heavy hangings about the inner doors were dingy and moth-eaten; and, though all this was in harmony with the drowsy quietness and the faint smell of decay, it had its significance.

Presently he heard footsteps, and looking up he saw a girl descending the stairs in the fading stream of light. She was clad in trailing white, which gleamed against the dark oak and rustled softly as it flowed about a tall, finely outlined and finely poised figure. She had hair of dark brown with paler lights in its curling tendrils, gathered back from a neck that showed a faintly warmer whiteness than the snowy fabric below it. It was her face, though, that seized Vane's attention: the level brows; the quiet, deep brown eyes; the straight, cleanly-cut nose; and the subtle suggestion of steadfastness and pride which they all conveyed. He rose with a cry that had pleasure and eagerness in it.

"Evelyn!"

She came down, moving lightly but with a rhythmic grace, and laid a firm, cool hand in his.

"I'm glad to see you back, Wallace," she said. "How you have changed!"

"I'm not sure that's kind," smiled Vane. "In some ways, you haven't changed at all; I would have known you anywhere!"

"Nine years is a long time to remember any one."

Vane had seen few women during that period; but he was not a fool, and he recognized that this was no occasion for an attempt at gallantry. There was nothing coquettish in Evelyn's words, nor was there any irony. She had answered in the tranquil, matter-of-fact manner which, as he remembered, usually characterized her.

"It's a little while since you landed, isn't it?" she added.

"A week. I had some business in London, and then I went on to look up
Lucy. She had just gone up to town—to a congress, I believe—and so
I missed her. I shall go up again to see her as soon as she answers
my letter."

"It won't be necessary. She's coming here for a fortnight."

"That's very kind. Whom have I to thank for suggesting it?"

"Does it matter? It was a natural thing to ask your only sister—who is a friend of mine. There is plenty of room, and the place is quiet."

"It didn't used to be. If I remember, your mother generally had it full part of the year."

"Things have changed," said Evelyn quietly.

Vane was baffled by something in her manner. Evelyn had never been effusive—that was not her way—-but now, while she was cordial, she did not seem disposed to resume their acquaintance where it had been broken off. After all, he could hardly have expected this.

"Mabel is like you, as you used to be," he observed. "It struck me as soon as I saw her; but when she began to talk there was a difference."

Evelyn laughed softly.

"Yes; I think you're right in both respects. Mopsy has the courage of her convictions. She's an open rebel."

There was no bitterness in her laugh. Evelyn's manner was never pointed; but Vane fancied that she had said a meaning thing—one that might explain what he found puzzling in her attitude, when he held the key to it.

"Mopsy was dubious about you before you arrived, but I'm pleased to say she seems reassured," she laughed.

Carroll came down, and a few moments later Mrs. Chisholm appeared and they went in to dinner in a low-ceilinged room. During the general conversation, Mabel suddenly turned to Vane.

"I suppose you have brought your pistols with you?"

"I haven't owned one since I was sixteen," Vane laughed.

The girl looked at him with an excellent assumption of incredulity.

"Then you have never shot anybody in British Columbia!"

Carroll laughed, as if this greatly pleased him, but Vane's face was rather grave as he answered her.

"No; I'm thankful to say that I haven't. In fact, I've never seen a shot fired, except at a grouse or a deer."

"Then the West must be getting what the Archdeacon—he's Flora's husband, you know—calls decadent," the girl sighed.

"She's incorrigible," Mrs. Chisholm interposed with a smile.

Carroll leaned toward Mabel confidentially.

"In case you feel very badly disappointed, I'll let you into a secret.
When we feel real, real savage, we take the ax instead."

Evelyn fancied that Vane winced at this, but Mabel looked openly regretful.

"Can either of you pick up a handkerchief going at full gallop on horseback?" she inquired.

"I'm sorry to say that I can't; and I've never seen Wallace do so,"
Carroll laughed.

Mrs. Chisholm shook her head at her daughter.

"Miss Clifford complained of your inattention to the study of English last quarter," she reproved severely.

Mabel made no answer, though Vane thought it would have relieved her to grimace.

Presently the meal came to an end, and an hour afterward, Mrs. Chisholm rose from her seat in the lamplit drawing-room.

"We keep early hours at the Dene, but you will retire when you like," she said. "As Tom is away, I had better tell you that you will find syphons and whisky in the smoking-room. I have had the lamp lighted."

"Thank you," Vane replied with a smile. "I'm afraid you have taken more trouble on our account than you need have done. Except on special occasions, we generally confine ourselves to strong green tea."

Mabel looked at him in amazement.

"Oh!" she cried. "The West is certainly decadent! You should be here when the otter hounds are out. Why, it was only—"

She broke off abruptly beneath her mother's withering glance.

When Vane and Carroll were left alone, they strolled out, pipe in hand, upon the terrace. They could see the fells tower darkly against the soft sky, and a tarn that lay in the blackness of the valley beneath them was revealed by its pale gleam. A wonderful mingling of odors stole out of the still summer night.

"I suppose you could put in a few weeks here?" Vane remarked.

"I could," Carroll replied. "There's an atmosphere about these old houses that appeals to me, perhaps because we have nothing like it in Canada. The tranquillity of age is in it—it's restful, as a change. Besides, I think your friends mean to make things pleasant."

"I'm glad you like them."

Carroll knew that his comrade would not resent a candid expression of opinion.

"I do; the girls in particular. They interest me. The younger one's of a type that's common in our country, though it's generally given room for free development into something useful there. Mabel's chafing at the curb. It remains to be seen whether she'll kick, presently, and hurt herself in doing so."

Vane remembered that Evelyn had said something to the same effect; but he had already discovered that Carroll possessed a keen insight in certain matters.

"And her sister?" he suggested.

"You won't mind my saying that I'm inclined to be sorry for her? She has learned repression—been driven into line. That girl has character, but it's being cramped and stunted. You live in walled-in compartments in this country."

"Doesn't the same thing apply to New York, Montreal, or Toronto?"

"Not to the same extent. We haven't had time yet to number off all the little subdivisions and make rules for them, nor to elaborate the niceties of an immutable system. No doubt, we'll come to it."

He paused with a deprecatory laugh.

"Mrs. Chisholm believes in the system. She has been modeled on it—it's got into her blood; and that's why she's at variance with her daughters. No doubt, the thing's necessary; I'm finding no fault with it. You must remember that we're outsiders, with a different outlook; we've lived in the new West."

Vane strolled on along the terrace thoughtfully. He was not offended; he understood his companion's attitude. Like other men of education and good upbringing driven by unrest or disaster to the untrammeled life of the bush, Carroll had gained sympathy as well as knowledge. Facing facts candidly, he seldom indulged in decided protest against any of them. On the other hand, Vane was on occasion liable to outbreaks of indignation.

"Well," said Vane at length, "I guess it's time to go to bed."