Peter Ramsay had come down to spend the Christmas holidays at Plas Afon in a very bad temper, both with himself and his world.

He was perfectly aware that he had been over-hasty in his struggle with vested interests, but what irritated him most of all was the knowledge that he had, as it were, cut the ground from under his own feet, so that further fighting was impossible. He could, of course, go over to Vienna, and learn a great deal under Pagenheim; but he would only have to come home again and begin where he had left off; which was silly--intensely silly! There are few things more annoying than the knowledge that you have given yourself away needlessly, and that a very slight application of a drag might have prevented the apple-cart from being overturned. The whole affair seemed now almost childish in its crudity. What the deuce did it matter whether a hogshead or a pint of beer were drunk, or if one patient the more died, instead of living to die in due time of something worse!

He was glooming out of the window over such thoughts as these when Helen, after seeing Lady Smith-Biggs start--despite her lunch--in a terrible fuss lest she should be too late for tea, came back to the drawing-room. Aunt Em, as always, had discreetly retired to her room, whether for work or sleep none knew, so they were alone. It was for the first time, and Helen seized her opportunity, for she had something she wished to say to him. So she crossed to where he stood, his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets.

"Ned tells me you have made up your mind to Vienna," she said kindly. There was a sort of forlornness about this strong, capable man which always touched her.

"I have, Mrs. Tressilian," he replied somewhat defiantly. "I shall go to Pagenheim, and find out--things."

She smiled. "And come back, I suppose, to give No. 36 in the Queen's ward a chance of life?"

"If any one will provide me with a private hospital meanwhile, Mrs. Tressilian," he answered, "for I don't see my way to it otherwise."

She flushed a little eagerly, as if the conversation were taking the turn she had desired.

"I am so glad you say that, Dr. Ramsay," she replied, "for it helps me to say something. You know I have left the hospital--at least I am not going back. Now I have to live somewhere; where matters little. And--despite what you thought once--I am quite a decent nurse; a good one if--if I am keenly interested. If I were to take a small house outside Blackborough--or anywhere else--and--and make a regular surgical ward out of one room, would you--would you try that operation?"

He stared at her. "But why on earth----" he began.

"For many reasons!" she interrupted hastily. "Chiefly because I confess to feeling a responsibility."

"Or my lack of it!" he put in dryly. "I'm afraid not, Mrs. Tressilian; it would cost too much. To be frank--you haven't the money, neither have I."

"Money!" she echoed, a trifle scornfully. "Oh! it isn't a question of money. Ned would find that. I have spoken to him, and he is quite ready to help."

Peter Ramsay became very stiff. "That is extremely kind of him, and it is extremely kind of you also----"

"I am only thinking of No. 36," she interpolated warningly.

"I am perfectly aware of that fact," he replied; "but may I remind you of another--that No. 36 is only one out of, say, a million who are very possibly better dead and out of the way? My cutting him about might be a selfish pleasure; my duty might be--euthanasia!"

She looked at him vexedly. "I do not dictate to you a doctor's duty," she said with spirit, "but I know that a nurse's is 'to save life and defy death at all costs.' Have I got that quite pat?"

He smiled. "You have an excellent memory, Mrs. Tressilian," he replied, "and--and I am grateful for the suggestion, but it is quite out of the question. Perhaps when I return from Vienna I may be able to--to do my duty. At present I ought to be starting for my walk over the hills. Lord Blackborough has promised to pick me up at Dinas--the motor is to meet him there--and as this is my last day----"

"Are you leaving us to-morrow?" she asked quickly.

For an instant he felt inclined to confess that he had had no previous intention of departing before the New Year, but he swallowed his vexation at his own hasty decision, and said rather lamely, "I am afraid I must--I ought just to give a look round the London hospitals before I go abroad."

"I suppose it would be better," she assented sarcastically. "I have always understood that they are really not bad."

"Except for the beer," he answered coolly, and left her.

But though it was easy enough to dismiss Helen and her suggestions in this cavalier fashion, he could not dismiss a feeling of irritation at her implied disapproval. The faintest hint of it always roused resentment in him and a desire to make that disapproval utterly unreasonable. So, as he breasted the hills, intending to walk over their summits, and when time was up drop down on Dinas and the motor, his thoughts were busy with the possibility of fitting in No. 36 in the Queen's ward with his plans for the future.

There was always the hidden hundred pounds--if it still existed! He had a great mind to see if it did, since he was so close to its hiding-place.

Would he have time? He looked at his watch, and then gave a glance seaward. The estuary, now at flood tide, lay silver in the winter sunshine, and not more than halfway across it he could discern a slowly-moving black speck. The boat, of course. If that were so, he would have ample time, and for a smoke also. He sat down, and watched the small black speck, wondering what had delayed those three. It seemed to be going faster now; but even so, there was time and to spare. An hour and a half at least ere they could possibly crest those further hills and drop down into the valley. And then--then, by the computation of experience, it would be at least an hour ere Ned Blackborough would tear himself away!

Peter Ramsay had rather a contempt for love. It was to him a physiological disease, the violence of which argued a lack of self-control. And the beautiful girl who had never seen a sixpence, though very charming, appeared to him to be a most unsuitable wife for any man. For his idea of a wife was distinctly some one who could comfort and coddle, and--without open words--prevent one from making an ass of oneself.

Yes! he had made an ass of himself; but, concerning No. 36, there was no reason why he should not take his own way. After all, there was nothing but life. The metaphysicians would put thought first, but it was "Ergo sum, cogito," not the converse--at any rate to common-sense.

Nothing was susceptible to absolute proof except life and death, and they probably were mere conditions of matter.

As he looked out, the light waves from the faintly declining sun were turning the invisible vapour about the higher hills into a filmy mist-veil which seemed to hang between him and the distant view. His eye seemed to detect in it a ceaseless shimmer, an almost imperceptible vibration.

That was it, truly! The motes in a sunbeam--even he himself for that matter--were but transient aggregations of the atoms in their unending dance of life and death. What would they hive into, like swarming bees? A man or a mouse--who could tell? Only the master of the ceremonies in this dance macabre. So the question of life or death was already settled for No. 36, though, so far as he--Peter Ramsay--was concerned, it depended on the existence or non-existence of that miserable pittance of a hundred pounds. But all the sanctions, all the mental and moral backings of humanity, depended on something which could not be proved to exist.

He rose with a shrug of the shoulders, put out his pipe, and started on again. Life or death seemed to him to hang on that hundred pounds. He did not much care which; the odds were distinctly on death.

As he turned ere dipping down into the valley which lay between him and the gap, he gave a last look at the silver shield of the estuary. The boat must have reached the shelter of the further shadow--unless it had gone down! Life and Death--Death and Life! An even balance, despite the surgeon's skill; despite even money.

As a matter of fact, the boat had at last reached the opposite shore, and Ned Blackborough, feeling savage with himself and Fate, was standing by holding the rope taut, while Ted, visibly triumphant, was lifting Aura bodily from the boat across the intervening yards of slush and seaweed.

He set her down gently with a frank "That's all right," and she, looking up at him, smiled her thanks.

"I'm so sorry you hurt your arm," she said to Ned rather condescendingly. "It is lucky Ted could row so well, isn't it?"

"Very lucky," replied Ned, feeling aggrieved. He had gone on pulling against that miscounted tide till he positively could no more, and even now the pain of his ill-mended arm made him feel almost sick. He had been forced to give in, and though Ted had been perfectly within his rights in failing to let Aura know that the disability was--well! not absolutely blameworthy--he need not have sculled so confoundedly well.

He had been a picture to look at, bending easily to the long stroke while Ned was idly steering.

"We had better take the Crudel valley," said the latter as a bye-path showed up a lonely glen; "it isn't half as pretty as this, but it is shorter, and we haven't much time. I delayed you horribly."

Aura smiled tolerantly. "But we came along splendidly afterwards, didn't we?"

"You know this country awfully well," remarked Ted, feeling the urgent need of generosity. "I haven't an idea where we are."

But Ned was in no humour for patronage.

"I happen to hold the mineral rights of the Crudel valley in rather a queer, roundabout way," he replied. "They went with a property my uncle had bought in Shropshire--but that is beside the point. Naturally, with all the fuss there has been about the slate quarries lately, I have had to know something as to the lie of the land. When we first met, I was down to see it, so there is nothing wonderful in my knowledge."

Ted stared at him. "By George! Then it is you who put a spoke in the wheel of that new company?"

Aura looked at him also, and with quick disapproval. "Is it you who have thrown all the people out of work?" she asked. "Do you know some of the children haven't enough to eat,--at least," she added, her look having brought her, she scarcely knew why, a vague doubt, "Martha told me that the people were getting up a subscription for them."

Ned laughed derisively and shrugged his shoulders.

"You won't understand what I mean, but there is a general election due next year. The men have had other employment offered them; if they won't accept it, that is their own fault."

"But I don't understand your objection----" began Ted.

"Don't you?" interrupted Lord Blackborough. "I think that must be because you don't know good slate from bad."

They had passed on by this time into that most desolate of all places on God's earth, a valley of unworked slate quarries, a valley desecrated by man's needs, yet needed not by man. Seamed, scarred, riven until scarcely a blade of gracious grass remained on what had once been soft, sweet sheep-bite set with heather, shadowed by dense bracken thickets. Great moraines of dÉbris, not rounded by long Æons of slow yet certain grinding in the mill of God, but fresh, crude, angled, from the hand of man, usurped the valley now on this side, now on that, turning the very roadway, bordered by rusty rails, to their pleasure. A mountain stream, released from long slavery, sped--exultantly free--past the low congeries of differently pitched roofs supported by iron pilasters, beneath which cogwheels and bands, levers and distributors stood immovable, rusted into silence. Hanging halfway up a stiff incline of shale, an empty truck hung rusted to the rails. Another, full of split slate squared, holed, ready for homestead or granary, stood in the wide stacking-yard where thousands and thousands of these same leaves of slate, looking like huge books, were ranged in orderly piles. How many homes, how many churches, how many barns and factories might not have been roofed in by these piles waiting idly?

For what? For money.

Ned Blackborough stooped down and picked up a slate which had fallen on the truck-way. It snapped between his fingers, and with a laugh he flung it aside.

"Bad stuff!" he said, "and that is better than most. I tell you that this valley, which is a valley of desolation now, has been a valley of dishonesty from the very beginning."

His eyes seemed to catch fire, and he turned to Ted almost threateningly, "And you don't understand! Will you understand, I wonder, when I tell you that these quarries, like many another, have been in the hands of speculators from the very beginning? Some one who knew the slate was bad took to himself others who knew it also, and between them they floated a company. When the money had gone, some other rascal bought the bankrupt stock and started another company, and another, and another. And all the time, these workmen whom you commiserate were hewing and splitting and taking their wages, for what? For money, only for money! What was it to them that the slate was bad, that their labour was wasted and vain? They got their money. And now they wonder because, when the lease of the last company was up, I stepped in and said 'No.' This sham shan't go on. I claim my right, and I won't be bribed by anybody." He spoke almost passionately, then laughed, and, with a brief "I beg your pardon; these things irritate me," struck up a shady footpath which led over the hill.

"I don't exactly see how it could have been done," remarked Ted argumentatively. "If they went bankrupt they must have had a valuator, and then----"

"I've no doubt they had," broke in Ned impatiently, "but what I tell you is the long and short of it."

"Besides, I don't consider the workman is to be blamed at all," argued Ted. "So long as he does his work fairly and gets his pay for doing that work, no one has a right to find fault with him. Then think of the women and children."

Aura, whose face had grown keen over the discussion, looked swiftly at Ned, awaiting his answer. He, in one of his worst moods, gave it unhesitatingly: "My dear fellow, what is the use of breeding up a race of thieves and swindlers?"

With that he bent himself to take the hill at a gallop, leaving those two agreeing as to the women and children, agreeing also in a thousand superficial likings and dislikings born of youth, high spirits, and no small lack of thought.

But at a sharp turn amid the tumbled dÉbris, they overtook Lord Blackborough opposed to a small boy seated disconsolately on the ground in a puddle of fresh milk, dotted with the remains of a broken jug, while an ill-looking collie dog yapped from the shelter of a more than usually large block of worthless slate.

"It wasn't my fault," explained Ned ruefully. "That brute of a dog upset him, trying to bark and run away at the same time."

The small boy, having now realised his misfortune, was blubbering in Welsh.

"I don't understand what he is saying," said Aura, looking up at Ted, after bending over the urchin with English consolation. "Do you?"

He shook his head. "That is the worst of wild Wales; one can't be compassionate."

Ned looked at them a trifle contemptuously.

"He's afraid. A boy never blubbers like that without cause, and he isn't hurt. Here, you!" he continued, hauling the child up incontinently, "don't howl. I go with you home--catre--do you understand?--catre--mam."

With which Welsh smattering, he dragged up the unwilling boy, still blubbering, towards a group of slate cottages which showed a few hundred yards away. Such desolate-looking cottages, only to be differentiated by their straight lines from the masses of dÉbris about them.

"You go on," he called back. "It's straight over the brow of the hill, and then you can see. I'll pick you up in no time."

But when they looked back from the summit, there was no trace of him on the upward path.

"There is no use waiting," said Ted oracularly. "By George! what a relief this is."

He spoke in glad confidence as his eye travelled over God's good world untouched, undefiled, and yet in his heart of hearts he would not have scrupled at any desecration of Nature, provided it were in pursuit of gold.

Nevertheless, he responded at once to the fresh, bright breeze on the wide, undulating hill-tops, and the free, glad joy in life itself as life, came to him as they passed with springy step over grass-land and bog-land, all a-crackle with faint frost. What did they talk about? Not love, certainly--he was too wise for that--though love lay at the bottom of all his thoughts.

"How your hand trembles," she said laughingly, as he held hers in crossing a brook.

He flushed a little. "We've been going such a rate," he replied. "You're the best walker I know, for a girl."

There was something in the qualification which set her at her ease.

"I wonder what has become of Ned?" she said once, as they finally turned into the home valley and saw beneath them, spread out like a map, the familiar fields, the sloping lawn, the straight walks of the garden, the cosy, comfortable-looking chimneys all asmoke.

Ted pointed to the sky-line above them, where for an instant a dark something, which might have been a sheep, and might have been a man, showed, then disappeared.

"Up in the clouds, as usual," he laughed. "Ned is an awfully good chap, but I wish he wasn't quite so balloony."

Aura looked at him distastefully. "I like him best when he is in the clouds," she said firmly. "Of course," here she became slightly reflective, "I dare say his being so--so erratic, might put one out a good deal, and people like you would be more satisfactory to deal with; still--" here she dimpled all over--"come! let us race down the hill, and then we can be waiting tea for him when he turns up."

But there was no tea ready when Ned, whose ill humour had passed with his solitary walk, arrived.

"Thank Heaven!" cried Ted, who met him at the door. "Will you, like a good fellow, fetch the doctor; he lives beyond the hill? Mr. Smith is ill, as he was before. You can take the motor, can't you, from Dinas?"

"No need; Ramsay will be there. I'll be back in no time," was the reply.

So while Ted helped Martha with his experience and comforted Aura as best he could, thereinafter remaining to give Peter Ramsay a hand in getting the old man to bed, Ned kicked his heels in the drawing-room. Sickness, with its possibility of death, always made him a little disdainful, and he had but a few stereotyped words of regret when, the crisis having passed, the three came in, Aura looking pale and troubled.

"Was he as ill before?" she asked, her eyes seeking Ted's almost reproachfully.

Ted's sought the doctor's. "Not quite," replied the latter. "These attacks--it is as well to be prepared for them, Miss Graham--tend to become more serious. He may not, I hope he will not, have another for a long time, but you must try and avoid any excitement." He held out his hand to say good-bye. "There's no reason to be alarmed, I assure you; with care, he may not have another for--for months."

He clasped the girl's hand with strong, steady grip and smiled, but poor Aura, facing the one great reality for the first time, stood white and silent. Only when they had gone, she turned to Ted.

"I don't know what I should have done without you," she said gratefully.

Outside, as the motor disappeared in the darkness, Dr. Ramsay was saying nearly the same thing.

"It is lucky Cruttenden was there and had an idea of what to do; lucky too that I didn't give you up and go home."

"Sorry," responded Ned shortly. "Hope you had a good walk."

"Excellent," replied Peter Ramsay with a little laugh. "I satisfied myself that hills and dales, and the round world generally, were mere manifestations of matter, and the Providence didn't shape my steps anyhow."