 have yielded me more than three or four per cent. I was doomed to work for other people who were growing rich. It doesn't matter much now, except that so many years of life have been lost.'

'Had your brother any children?'

'No children. All the same, it astonished me when I heard his will; I had expected nothing. In one day—in one hour—I passed from slavery to freedom, from poverty to more than comfort. We never hated each other; I don't want you to think that.'

'But—didn't it bring you friends as well as comfort?'

'Oh,' he laughed, 'I am not so rich as to have people pressing for my acquaintance. I have only about six hundred a year.'

Monica drew in her breath silently, then gazed at the distance.

'No, I haven't made any new friends. The one or two men I care for are not much better off than I used to be, and I always feel ashamed to ask them to come and see me. Perhaps they think I shun them because of their position, and I don't know how to justify myself. Life has always been full of worrying problems for me. I can't take things in the simple way that comes natural to other men.'

'Don't you think we ought to be turning back, Mr. Widdowson?'

'Yes, we will. I am sorry the time goes so quickly.'

When a few minutes had passed in silence, he asked,—

'Do you feel that I am no longer quite a stranger to you, Miss Madden?'

'Yes—you have told me so much.'

'It's very kind of you to listen so patiently. I wish I had more interesting things to tell, but you see what a dull life mine has been.' He paused, and let the boat waver on the stream for a moment. 'When I dared to speak to you last Sunday I had only the faintest hope that you would grant me your acquaintance. You can't, I am sure, repent of having done me that kindness—?'

'One never knows. I doubted whether I ought to talk with a stranger—'

'Rightly—quite rightly. It was my perseverance—you saw, I hope, that I could never dream of giving you offence. The rule is necessary, but you see there may be exceptional cases.' He was giving a lazy stroke now and then, which, as the tide
