“I hope you will believe, Joan,” he said, taking up a book and looking for his place, “that I knew nothing of this, and that I am not in any way responsible for it.”

Her face seemed to darken as she rose and moved towards the door.

“I am sure of that,” she said, stiffly.  “I do not blame you.”

* * * * *

Up into the purer, finer air of the hills-up with a lightening heart, though still carrying a bitter burden of despondency.  Night rested upon the hilltops and brooded in the valleys.  Below, the shadowy landscape lay like blurred patchwork-still he climbed upwards till Feldwick lay silent and sleeping at his feet and a flavour of the sea mingled with the night wind which cooled his cheeks.  Then Douglas Guest threw himself breathless amongst the bracken and gazed with eager eyes downwards.

“If she should not come,” he murmured.  “I must speak to some one or I shall go mad.”

Deeper fell the darkness, until the shape of the houses below was lost, and only the lights were visible.  Such a tiny little circle they seemed.  He watched them with swelling heart.  Was this to be the end of his dreams, then?  Bailiff Morrison’s cottage, two pounds a week, and Joan for his wife?  He, who had dreamed of fame, of travel in distant countries, of passing some day into the elect of those who had written their names large in the book of life.  His heart swelled in passionate revolt.  Even though he might be a pauper, though he owed his learning and the very clothes in which he stood to Gideon Strong, had any man the right to demand so huge a sacrifice?  He had spoken his mind and his wishes only to be crushed with cold contempt.  To-day his answer had been given.  What was it that Gideon Strong had said?  “I have fed you and clothed you and taught you; I have kept you from beggary and made you what you are.  Now, as my right, I claim your future.  Thus and thus shall it be.  I have spoken.”

He walked restlessly to and fro upon the windy hilltop.  A sense of freedom possessed him always upon these heights.  The shackles of Gideon Strong fell away.  Food and clothing and education, these were great things to owe, but life was surely a greater, and life he owed to no man living—­only to God.  Was it a thing which he dared misuse?—­fritter helplessly away in this time-forgotten corner of the earth?  Life surely was a precious loan to be held in trust, to be made as full and deep and fruitful a thing as a man’s energy and talent could make it.  To Gideon Strong he owed much, but it was a debt which surely could be paid in other ways than this.

He stopped short.  A light footstep close at hand startled, then thrilled him.  It was Cicely—­hatless, breathless with the climb, and very fair to see in the faint half-lights.  For Cicely, though she was Gideon Strong’s daughter, was not of Feldwick or Feldwick ways, nor were her gowns simple, though they were fashioned by a village dressmaker.  She had lived all her life with distant relatives near London.  Douglas had never seen her till two months ago, and her coming had been a curious break in the life at the farm.