An itinerant mendicant preacher had walked through the valley that day, and when night fell in he had gravitated to the parson's door.

"Seeing the sun low," he said, "and knowing it a long way to Keswick, and I not being able to abide the night air, but sure to catch a cold, I came straight to your house."

Like other guests of high degree, the shoeless being made a virtue of accepting hospitality.

"Come in, brother, and welcome," said Parson Christian; and that night the wayfarer lodged at the vicarage. He was a poor, straggle-headed creature, with a broken brain as well as a broken purse, but he had the warm seat at the ingle.

Greta heard Paul's step on the path and ran to meet him.

"Paul, Paul! thank God you are here at last!"

Her manner was warm and impulsive to seriousness, but Paul was in no humor to make nice distinctions.

Parson Christian rose from his seat before the fire and shook hands with feeling and gravity.

"Right glad to see you, good lad," he said. "This is Brother Jolly," he added, "a fellow-soldier of the cross, who has suffered sore for neglecting Solomon's injunction against suretyship."

Paul took the flaccid hand of the fellow-soldier, and then drew Greta aside into the recess of the square window.

"It's all settled," he said, eagerly; "I saw my father's old friend, and agreed to go out to his sheep runs as steward, with the prospect of farming for myself in two years' time. I have been busy, I can tell you. Only listen. On Monday I saw the good old gentleman—he's living in London now, and he won't go back to Victoria, he tells me—wants to lay his bones where they were got, he says—funny old dog, rather—says he remembers my father when he wasn't as solemn as a parish clerk on Ash Wednesday. Well, on Monday I saw the old fellow, and settled terms and things—liberal old chap, too, if he has got a hawk beak—regular Shylock, you know. Well—where was I? Oh, of course—then on Tuesday I took out our berths—yours, mother's, and mine—the ship is called the 'Ballarat'—queer name—a fine sea-boat, though—she leaves the London docks next Wednesday—"

"Next Wednesday?" said Greta, absently, and with little interest in her tone.

"Yes, a week to-day—sails at three prompt—pilot comes on at a quarter to—everybody aboard at twelve. But it didn't take quite four-and-twenty hours to book the berths, and the rest of the day I spent at a lawyer's office. Can't stomach that breed, somehow; they seem to get all the clover—maybe it's because they're a drift of sheep with tin cans about their necks, and can never take a nibble without all the world knowing. Ha! ha! I wish I'd thought of that when I saw old Shylock."

Paul was rattling on with a glib tongue, and eyes that danced to the blithe step of an emancipated heart.

In the slumberous fire-light the parson and the itinerant preacher talked together of the dust and noise in the great world outside these sleepy mountains.

Greta drew back into the half-light of the window recess, too greedy of Paul's good spirits to check them.

"Yes, I went to the lawyer's office," he continued, "and drew out a power of attorney in Hugh's name, and now he can do what he likes with the Ghyll, just as if it were his own. Much luck to him, say I, and some bowels, too, please God! But that's not all—not half. This morning—ah, now, you wise little woman, who always pretend to know so much more than other folks, tell me what I did in London before leaving it this morning?"

Greta had hardly listened. Her eyes had dropped to his breast, her arms had crept about his neck, and her tears were falling fast. But he was not yet conscious of the deluge.

"What do you think? Why, I went to Doctors' Commons and bought the license—dirt cheap, too, at the price—and now it can be done any day—any day—- think of that! So ho! so ho! covering your face, eh?—up, now, up with it—gently. Do you know, they asked me your complexion, the color of your eyes, or something—that old Shylock or somebody—and I couldn't tell for the life of me—there, a peep, just one wee peep! Why, what's this—what the d—— What villain—what in the name of mischief is the ma—Why, Greta, you're cry—yes, you are—you are crying!"

Paul had forced up Greta's face with gentle violence, and now he held her at arm's length, surveying her with bewildered looks.

Parson Christian twisted about in his chair. He had not been so much immersed in wars and rumors of wars as to be quite ignorant of what was going on around him. "Greta is but in badly case," he said, pretending to laugh. "She has fettled things in the house over and over again, and she has if't and haffled over everything. She's been longing, surely." The deep voice had a touch of tremor in it this time, and the twinkling old eyes looked hazy.

"Ah, of course!" shouted Paul, in stentorian tones, and he laughed about as heartily as the parson.

Greta's tears were gone in an instant.

"You must go home at once, Paul," she said; "your mother must not wait a moment longer."

He laughed and bantered and talked of his dismissal. She stopped him with a grave face and a solemn word. At last his jubilant spirit was conquered; he realized that something was amiss. Then she told him what happened at the Ghyll on Monday night. He turned white, and at first stood tongue-tied. Next he tried to laugh it off, but the laughter fell short.

"Must have been my brother," he said; "it's true, we're not much alike, but then it was night, dark night, and you had no light but the dim lamp—and at least there's a family resemblance."

"Your brother Hugh was sitting in his room."

Paul's heart sickened with an indescribable sensation.

"You found the door of my mother's room standing open?"

"Wide open."

"And Hugh was in his own room?" said Paul, his eyes flashing and his teeth set.

"I saw him there a moment later."

"My features, my complexion, my height, and my build, you say?"

"The same in everything."

Paul lifted his face, and in that luminous twilight it were an expression of peculiar horror: "In fact, myself—in a glass?"

Greta shuddered and answered, "Just that, Paul; neither more nor less."

"Very strange," he muttered. He was shaken to the depths. Greta crept closer to his breast.

"And when my mother recovered she said nothing?"

"Nothing."

"You did not question her?"

"How could I? But I was hungering for a word."

Paul patted her head with his tenderest touch.

"Have you seen her since?"

"Not since. I have been ill—I mean, rather unwell."

Parson Christian twisted again in his chair. "What do you think, my lad? Greta in a dream last night rose out of bed, went to the stair-head, and there fell to the ground."

"My poor darling," said Paul, the absent look flying from his eyes.

"But, blessed be God, she has no harm," said the parson, and turned once more to his guest.

"Paul, you must hurry away now. Good-bye for the present, dearest. Kiss me good-bye."

But Paul stood there still.

"Greta, do you ever feel that what is happening now has happened before—somehow—somewhere—and where?—when?—the questions keep ringing in your brain and racking your heart—but there is no answer—you are shouting into a voiceless cavern."

His face was as pale as ashes, his eyes were fixed, and his gaze was far away. Greta grew afraid of the horror she had awakened.

"Don't think too seriously about it," she said. "Besides, I may have been mistaken. In fact, Hugh said—"

"Well, what did he say?"

"He made me ashamed. He said I had imagined I saw you and screamed, and so frightened your mother."

"There are men in the world who would see the Lord of Hosts come from the heavens in glory and say it was only a water-spout."

"But, as you said yourself, it was in the night, and very dark. I had nothing but the feeble oil-lamp to see by. Don't look like that, Paul."

The girl lifted a nervous hand and covered his eyes, and laughed a little, hollow laugh.

Paul shook himself free of his stupor.

"Good-night, Greta," he said, tenderly, and walked to the door. Then the vacant look returned.

"The answer is somewhere—somewhere," he said, faintly. He shook himself again, and shouted, in his lusty tones:

"Good-night, all—good-night, good-night!"

The next instant he was gone.

Out in the road, he began to run; but it was not from exertion alone that his breath came and went in gusts. Before he reached the village his nameless sentiment of dread of the unknown had given way to anxiety for his mother. What was this strange illness that had come upon her in his absence? Her angel-face had been his beacon in darkness. She had lifted his soul from the dust. Tortured by the world and the world's law, yet Heaven's peace had settled on her. Let the world say what it would, into her heart the world had not entered.

He hurried on. What a crazy fool he had been to let Natt go off with the trap! Why had not that coxcomb told him what had occurred? He would break every bone in the blockhead's skin.

How long the road was, to be sure! A hundred fears suggested themselves on the way. Would his mother be worse? Would she be still conscious? Why, in God's name, had he ever gone away?

He came by the Flying Horse, and there, tied to the blue post, stood the horse and trap. Natt was inside. There he was, the villain, in front of the fire, laughing boisterously, a glass of hot liquor in his hand.

Paul jumped into the trap and drove away.

It was hardly in human nature that Natt should resist the temptation to show his cronies by ocular demonstration what a knowing young dog he could be if he liked. Natt never tried to resist it.

"Is it all die-spensy?" he asked, with a wink, when, with masterly circumlocution, he had broached his topic.

"It's a fate, I tell tha'," said Tom o' Dint, taking a churchwarden from between his lips; and another thin voice, from a back bench—it was little Jacob Berry's—corroborated that view of the mystery.

A fine scorn sat on the features of Natt as he exploded beneath their feet this mine of supernaturalism.

"Shaf on your bogies and bodderment, say I," he cried; "there are folks as won't believe their own senses. If you'll no' but show me how yon horse of mine can be in two places at once, I'll maybe believe as Master Paul Ritson can be here and in London at the same time. Nowt short o' that'll do for me, I can tell you."

And at this conclusive reasoning Natt laughed, and crowed, and stirred his steaming liquor. It was at that moment that Paul whipped up into the trap and drove away.

"Show me as my horse as I've tied to the post out there is in his stable all the time, and I's not be for saying as maybe I won't give in."

Gubblum Oglethorpe came straggling into the room at that instant, and caught the words of Natt's clinching argument.

"What see a post?" he asked.

"Why, the post afore the house, for sure!"

"Well, I wudna be for saying but I's getten a bit short-sighted, but if theer's a horse tied to a post afore this house, I's not be for saying as I won't be domd!"

Natt ran to the door, followed by a dozen pairs of quizzing eyes. The horse was gone. Natt sat down on the post and looked around in blank astonishment.

"Well, I will be domd!" he said.

At last the bogies had him in their grip.