“A young man of the name of Selden,” he remarked, “told me more of this than he knew.”

“G.  Selden,” said the vicar, with affectionate smiling.  “He is not aware that he was largely concerned in the matter.  In fact, without G. Selden, I do not know how, exactly, we should have got on.  How is he, nice fellow?”

“Extremely well, and in these days in my employ.  He is of the honest, indefatigable stuff which makes its way.”

His own smiles, as he watched the two tall figures in the distance, settled into an expression of speculative absorption, because he was reflecting upon profoundly interesting matters.

“There is a great primeval thing which sometimes—­not often, only sometimes—­occurs to two people,” he went on.  “When it leaps into being, it is well if it is not thwarted, or done to death.  It has happened to my girl and Mount Dunstan.  If they had been two young tinkers by the roadside, they would have come together, and defied their beggary.  As it is, I recognise, as I sit here, that the outcome of what is to be may reach far, and open up broad new ways.”

“Yes,” said the vicar.  “She will live here and fill a strong man’s life with wonderful human happiness—­her splendid children will be born here, and among them will be those who lead the van and make history.”

. . . . .

For some time Nigel Anstruthers lay in his room at Stornham Court, surrounded by all of aid and luxury that wealth and exalted medical science could gather about him.  Sometimes he lay a livid unconscious mask, sometimes his nurses and doctors knew that in his hollow eyes there was the light of a raging half reason, and they saw that he struggled to utter coherent sounds which they might comprehend.  This he never accomplished, and one day, in the midst of such an effort, he was stricken dumb again, and soon afterwards sank into stillness and died.

And the Shuttle in the hand of Fate, through every hour of every day, and through the slow, deep breathing of all the silent nights, weaves to and fro—­to and fro—­drawing with it the threads of human life and thought which strengthen its web:  and trace the figures of its yet vague and uncompleted design.