Day succeeded day, and Alan Wyverne still lingered at Dacre Castle. He could hardly have told you what kept him there. The shooting certainly was a great attraction, for, though the season closed in the first week of his stay, there were snipe and wild-fowl enough to have found work for half a dozen guns; but it was not the only one. The truth was, that a sort of liking had sprung up between the cynical host and his quiet guest. No amount of deep drinking could warm Bernard Haldane into an approach to conviviality; but his morose, moody temper decidedly softened during the few hours that he spent each evening in Alan's society. There was no sympathy perhaps, strictly speaking, between these two, but there was a certain affinity of suffering. The same soft white hand had stricken them both sorely, though one wound was yet green, and the other had been rankling more than a score of years. After that first night, neither made the faintest allusion to the subject; but ever and anon, when they were talking about pictures or other things in which both took an interest, the conversation would drop suddenly, and a silence would ensue as if by mutual consent; then, each felt conscious that his companion's thoughts were wandering in the same direction as his own, and with equal bitterness. After a few minutes you might have seen each break from his reverie, with the same half angry impatience, as if despising himself for the weakness of such idle musing, knowing all the while that the return of the dreaming-fit was as much a certainty and a question of hours as the rising of the morrow's sun.

Wyverne's visit would probably have been still further prolonged, if an invitation had not come one morning, suiting his present humour so exactly, that he accepted it without a moment's hesitation. An old comrade of Alan's was on the point of starting in his yacht for a roving cruise round the shores of Greece and Syria, with an intention of penetrating as far as the hunting-grounds that lie westward of the lower spurs of the Caucasus: indeed, there was a charming indefiniteness about the whole thing; the limits of their wanderings and the time of their return were to depend entirely on circumstances and the fancy of the travellers. Raymond Graham had heard of his friend's late disappointment, though he made no allusion to it in his letter, only enlarging on the sporting prospects of the expedition and the attractions of a very pleasant party. He thought it would be just the proposal to tempt Wyverne, and he guessed right.

None of the new-fashioned remedies beat some of the old ones, after all. Change of climate and change of scene enable the sufferer to make a stand against sickness of body or mind just as effectually as they did four thousand years ago.

Hot blinding tears stream down Dido's stricken face as she steals on board her galley in the harbour of Tyre; for nights she will not close her heavy eyes, lest a dead man should stand by her couch pointing to the gash of Pygmalion's dagger; the boldest of her true friends and leal vassals dares not trouble with a word of comfort that great hopeless sorrow. But see—the headlands of Cyprus are yet blue in the leeward distance, and the rich blood has begun to colour the pale cheek again; when the dark lashes lift, men see that the divine light is not quenched in the glorious eyes; nay, the sweet lips do not dissemble a faint, sad smile as she hears Bitias boasting loud of the bride he will win before sundown. Of a truth, I think the fair Queen's dreams will cease to be spectre-haunted, before her prow touches ground in the sands of Bagradas.

They are more definite now as to the seasons of donning and doffing their weeds, and will not set their tresses free a day too soon; but, O Benedict, my friend, are you sanguine enough to believe that so long a voyage would be needed, to replace despairing grief by decorous woe, in the desolate bosom of your widow, or mine?

Remember, we have been speaking of creatures, many of whom must find a certain pleasure in a mild languid melancholy. "They would not, if they could, be gay." Wyverne's temperament, though it contained womanlike elements of gentleness and tenderness, was essentially masculine. He was, indeed, stouter of heart and stronger in will than most of the rough-and-ready Stryver sort, who cannot argue without blustering or advise without bullying; who, neither in love nor war, ever lay aside the speaking-trumpet. The battle of life had gone hard against him of late; but he did not therefore conclude that there was nothing left worth living for. The example just then before his eyes was not without a significant warning. Alan felt that absence from England would suit him best for awhile; but he had no idea of banishing himself indefinitely. The proposed expedition would have tempted him at any period of his life, and he looked forward to it now with a real interest and an honest determination to make the best of everything.

Bernard Haldane did not attempt to alter his nephew's purpose; indeed, he approved of it thoroughly; but he sat much later than usual on the last evening, and seemed loth to say good-bye.

"If I am alive when you return, you will come here, I hope," he said at last. "If I am gone, I am sure you will, for good reasons. Your programme promises well—so well that it would be a pity not to carry it out thoroughly. Don't let money stop you. Where you have to deal with semi-barbarians, it's often a mere question between silver and steel; the first saves an infinity of trouble, and, I think, it's the most moral argument of the two. So take my advice, and bribe Sheikhs and chiefs to any extent. I have written to-day to my bankers, to give you unlimited credit there. Now, don't annoy me by making objections. You know perfectly well that I sacrifice nothing. If I did, my generosity would still begin very late—too late, I fear. It would be the falsest delicacy if you were to refuse; for, though we have been almost strangers hitherto, through my fault, Alan—you are my nephew, after all."

He laid his hand gently, almost timidly, on Wyverne's as he finished speaking, and the thin white fingers quivered with his nervous eagerness, though they remained always deadly cold.

It must be a very mortifying and humiliating time when an old man, who has started in life with exceptional advantages of intellect and fortune, is compelled to admit the probability of the whole thing having been a mistake from first to last; unless there is some grievous sin to be acknowledged and repented of, I think it would be more satisfactory to go blundering on unconsciously to the end. To such a frame of mind Mr. Haldane had been coming gradually for days past. He quite realized the fact that, in default of a son, he would have chosen Wyverne out of all England as the heir to his broad lands and great possessions. He knew enough of Alan's character to feel sure that no more than common kindness in earlier days would have been needed to win his affection and keep it; but he had held him at arm's length with the rest till it was too late to do anything better than change dislike into indifference. For thirty years he had sat alone, "nursing his wrath to keep it warm," fancying that he could make the many suffer for the crime of one. He had succeeded perhaps in discomfitting a few miserable dependents, and in disappointing or disgusting a few relatives and friends; but he had never ruffled a rose-leaf in the couch of the fair "enemy who did him that dishonour." Who had been the real sufferer, after all? The unhappy misanthrope almost gnashed his teeth as he answered the question, and acknowledged the childish impotence of his rancour. If he had only had the courage at first, to look his wrongs and griefs fairly in the face, they might have been easily kept at bay; it was too late to strive for the mastery when they had become a part of his morbid being. He saw all this clearly enough now. The old, old story—theory perfected, when to work it out is physically impossible—the alchemist just grasping the Great Arcanum, without a stiver left to buy powder for the crucible or coal for the furnace.

Nevertheless, that inveterate habit of looking at things au noir rather misled Bernard Haldane as to the state of Wyverne's feelings. It would be too much to say that he had begun to conceive a real affection for his uncle; but he was not insensible to the change in the latter's demeanour. He felt that the old man was trying, after his fashion, to make some amends for the past, and rather reproached himself for not having met such advances more cordially. Day by day the wall built up between them had been crumbling, and this last act of generosity made the breach quite practicable. An orthodox hero would, of course, have taken the "pale and haughty" line, and have rejected the golden olive-branch, preferring sublime independence to late obligation. Alan was much more practical and prosaic in his ideas; he accepted without hesitation, and did not scruple to express his gratitude warmly, though not demonstratively. It is needless to say that he did not intend to work the carte blanche unreasonably hard. So those two parted, in all amity. Bernard Haldane knew that he would be alone again on the morrow, and that in all probability he saw his nephew's face for the last time; but he drank less and slept better, that night, than he had done for years.

Wyverne wrote to tell Hubert Vavasour of his plans as soon as they were fixed. He got a very characteristic answer, full of kind wishes and prophecies of great success to the expedition. In truth the Squire rather envied any one who at that juncture could get well clear of England, home, and beauty. He spoke cheerfully about Helen, but his hopes for her seemed about the brightest of his domestic prospects. Evidently he thought that the crash could not be much longer averted, and that the close of the current year would find wrack and ruin at Dene. None the less, from the bottom of his honest heart, he wished his nephew good-speed.

A fortnight later, strong, healthy excitement tingled in Alan's veins, as he stood on a wet sloping deck, his arm coiled through the weather-rigging, and looked ahead, through spray driving thick and blindly, over a turmoil of black foam-flecked water, betting with himself as to when the next sea would come tumbling in-board. The Goshawk was a stout schooner, measuring two hundred liberal tons; there was no handier or honester craft in all the Royal squadron; but she had to do all she knew that afternoon, fighting her way foot by foot and tack by tack against a boisterous south-wester, with Cape Finisterre frowning on her lee. We have not to follow in the track of the outward-bound; our business is, now, with the girls they left behind them.