Peter Norcot had left Fox Tor Farm the night before Grace\'s discovery and return. Upon hearing this great news, he wrote a magnanimous letter of forgiveness, congratulation and quotation; but he did not follow it himself for the space of three days. Then the richer by information of very significant character, he reappeared at the dwelling of the Malherbs.

Meantime the sorry truth had come to Grace. Cecil Stark and the leaders of the conspiracy at Prince Town were all suffering imprisonment in the cachots; John Lee was at Plymouth; Lovey Lee had vanished. These things she comprehended and mourned; her mother\'s grief at temporal troubles she also shared and understood; only her father had changed in every respect, and she could find little explanation for his actions. The crisis of his affairs approached, and yet he made no effort to avert it; once only she spoke to him concerning the amphora; but he desired her to leave the subject, and commanded her neither to return to her former prison nor mention the matter to anybody.

"The affair is in my hands," he said; "I pray you, Grace, to leave it there for the present. Utter no word upon this subject. I have reasons strong enough for desiring silence."

She promised, bewildered to think why her father could thus desert his treasure now that she had restored it to him; then Norcot arrived without invitation to spend a day or two.

He quickly perceived that mighty changes marked the situation. His first intention had been to let the past alone; but, finding that Maurice Malherb was indifferent to it, and would not so much as express regret at all the indignity Peter had suffered, the lover, for the first time in his relations with his future father-in-law, struck a firmer note and permitted some flash of that steel in him to catch the other\'s eye.

They rode together upon the land, and the subject was opened by Peter.

"You\'ll guess that I\'m not here just now for rest and change, Malherb. There\'s a good deal to be said between us. But you seem indisposed to say it. Naturally I should like to know all about this wonderful rescue. Yet, since you are so taciturn, I\'ll leave that until it pleases you or Grace to tell the story. Suffice it that she\'s alive and well, and I hope wise at last. Now, how do we stand?"

Malherb noted the difference of tone, but made no comment upon it.

"She and I stand in the relation of father and daughter," he answered. "That is not new; and yet it is new. I have learned a good deal of late. My judgment is shaken within me."

"\'Where the judgment\'s weak, the prejudice is strong.\' You talk as if you had been in fault, instead of your daughter."

"You were not wont to speak so to me."

"Nor you to act so. Life is short, and even my astounding patience has run out."

"Listen," said Malherb, reining up his horse and lifting his hand. "Trouble has fallen upon me—terrible trouble. You shall know—everybody shall know; but not yet. It is in Job—set there in the awful words of Scripture: \'He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death.\' I have done evil, Norcot; I have fallen as I pray you may never fall. Invisible powers have rent me and torn me. I tell you that I have been through dark waters."

"Bless my soul! all the deities in a rumpus over one man! Tut, tut! What then? If you\'ve learned some wisdom—if you\'ve found out that God is jealous and takes mighty good care none of us shall be wiser than He is—then there\'s hope for you."

"I have learned much. This girl—my girl—she has suffered a great deal. Frankly, we have overlooked her rights."

"What moonshine do you talk, my dear Malherb?"

The other\'s eyes flashed—then dulled. His rage was but a shadow of its old self, and, like a shadow, vanished. He answered listlessly.

"I am not what I was. I have heavy anxieties, and I will not fight with my child. My opinion is changed. She is a woman."

"\'Little force suffices to break what\'s cracked already.\' You mean that she has prevailed with you to forswear yourself—to turn traitor to me. You a traitor! \'Tis a thing impossible!"

"What is impossible? No depth of error is impossible to one who knows not himself. To upbraid me is vain. The solid earth has shifted under my feet, Peter Norcot. But \'traitor\'—I\'ll not brook that. Worse than that I may be, but not that."

"Not that, indeed! If you only knew how I respect you and approve your staunch, fearless outlook upon life! But I, too, have endured not a little. Think of it—the marriage broken off at the altar rails! And then fifteen hours in the saddle. Nocturnal adventures to fill a volume. Terrific expenditure—wear and tear to body and soul and clothes.

"\'And winged lovelings round my aching heart
Still flutter, flutter—never to depart.\'


"You cannot go back on your oath, Malherb. If you did, you wouldn\'t be Malherb."

"We are fighting against nature."

"We are fighting against Cecil Stark, not nature at all.

"\'Man\'s life is but a cheating game
At cards, and Fortune plays the same,
Packing a queen up with a knave——\'

as Bancroft so appositely remarks. But the knave of hearts is hard and fast in a Prince Town cachot and like to stop there; and the knave of clubs—so to call that meddling rascal, John Lee—has stood his trial at Plymouth. They are done with; and King Peter shall come to his own queen again. I\'m patient as a spider and sure as time. I\'m going to marry Grace Malherb, though the heavens fall. I never change; but you? Am I more steadfast than the man who taught me steadfastness?

"\'An oath, an oath, I have an oath in heaven:
Shall I lay perjury upon my soul?\'

Ask yourself that question."

"Let it rest awhile. I have much else on my mind—far greater things even than this marriage. There are heavy secrets—heavy secrets."

"Who has not got \'em? God knows how well I wish you. But to behold you weak! \'Tis like believing that you see granite, only to find it painted paper."

The other man\'s mind was running on.

"I want no son of the next generation to be my glory and my hope. I want no son, nor daughter neither. I weary of the future; I turn from it; I have no longer any wish that my name should outlive me."

"Why then, the case is clear: you\'re ill! How blind one can be! Somehow I\'d never associated your iron constitution with physical griefs. Yet you, too, can be sick. Your vitality is lowered; I see it in your face. At such times there is danger of cancers, declines and murrains. They fix their dreadful fangs in us when we are enervated and weak. Man! trust me more. I\'m no wind-bag. I can do things. I have many very definite deeds to my credit. Often I came to you for advice; now take from me what\'s better; coin of the realm. Forgive bluntness and ............