mile-long sweep of Heavy Tree Hill, writhing against the mountain wind and its aeolian song.  He had never felt so lonely there.  In his rigid self-examination he thought Kitty right in protesting against the effect of his youthfulness and optimism.  Yet he was also right in being himself.  There is an egoism in the highest simplicity; and Barker, while willing to believe in others’ methods, never abandoned his own aims.  He was right in loving Kitty as he did; he knew that she was better and more lovable than she could believe herself to be; but he was willing to believe it pained and discomposed her if he showed it before company.  He would not have her change even this peculiarity—­it was part of herself—­no more than he would have changed himself.  And behind what he had conceived was her clear, practical common sense, all this time had been her belief that she had deceived her father!  Poor dear, dear Kitty!  And she had suffered because stupid people had conceived that her father had led him away in selfish speculations.  As if he—­Barker—­would not have first discovered it, and as if anybody—­even dear Kitty herself—­was responsible for his convictions and actions but himself.  Nevertheless, this gentle egotist was unusually serious, and when the child awoke at last, and with a fretful start and vacant eyes pushed his caressing hand away, he felt lonelier than before.  It was with a slight sense of humiliation, too, that he saw it stretch its hands to the mere hireling, Norah, who had never given it the love that he had seen even in the frivolous Mrs. Horncastle’s eyes.  Later, when his wife came in, looking very pretty in her elaborate dinner toilette, he had the same conflicting emotions.  He knew that they had already passed that phase of their married life when she no longer dressed to please him, and that the dictates of fashion or the rivalry of another woman she held superior to his tastes; yet he did not blame her.  But he was a little surprised to see that her dress was copied from one of Mrs. Horncastle’s most striking ones, and that it did not suit her.  That which adorned the maturer woman did not agree with the demure and slightly austere prettiness of the young wife.

But Barker forgot all this when Stacy—­reserved and somewhat severe-looking in evening dress—­arrived with business punctuality.  He fancied that his old partner received the announcement that they would dine in the public room with something of surprise, and he saw him glance keenly at Kitty in her fine array, as if he had suspected it was her choice, and understood her motives.  Indeed, the young husband had found himself somewhat nervous in regard to Stacy’s estimate of Kitty; he was conscious that she was not looking and acting like the old Kitty that Stacy had known; it did not enter his honest heart that Stacy had, perhaps, not appreciated her then, and that her present quality might accord more with his worldly tastes and experience.  It was, therefore, with