so cheery-like till Dorothy's name came in among our talk. I doubt his heart is broken. Ay, I've laughed at the notion of a heartbreak, but once seen it's not forgotten.'

The Parson, meanwhile, strode down the lane with a sort of instinct that he was going in the true direction. The road led straight to Fairy Dene, and Fairy Dene was ever the nook which lads and lasses sought when spring was kindly with the moors. No spot was at once so sheltered from the wind and so open to the sun, so near the open heath, where each man saw his neighbour's goings-out and comings-in, and yet so sheltered from all observation. Fool, fool that he had been never to go at gloaming-tide, or in some moonlight hour, to see if Will was to be found in this likeliest corner of the heath!

God forbid that any man should read the true tale of the Parson's heart as he went up and down, down and up, that stony, moonlit lane. For it was a man's heart, whether it were whole or broken, and its agonies must lie behind that veil of decency with which we screen the highest and the lowest realities of our motley life. Enough that the road led him to a raised strip of ling and gorse which overlooked the Dene, and that he saw Will Norton below him in the moonlight, his arm about the girl's slim waist-saw both of them halt in their lovers' walk from time to time, and talk together quietly, and kiss as if all the kisses in the world were not grown old by this time.

They parted at the foot of the track which led steeply up to where the Parson stood; and Dorothy, looking backward often, did not see the burly, black-coated figure till she neared the top.

'Good-good-even, Parson,' she said, timorously.

'Ay, good-even,' he answered, and passed on.

That was all. Yet in his face and in his voice there was something that made the girl shiver-something pitiless, and strong, and not to be denied. She remembered his strange wooing; she recalled his broken look of late; she saw that he was striding down the path, his face turned towards the way that Will had taken. For a while she stood there, irresolute; then, scarce knowing what she did, she followed Parson Shaw. There was trouble in the air, grievous trouble; and in some dumb fashion she felt that she must see that trouble to its end.

Parson Shaw did not know he was followed as he crossed the Dene and struck up into the desolate heath that lay between this and Norton House-the heath with its broken face where the quarry-pits riddled it from end to end. He was far ahead of

Dorothy, and, moreover, his thoughts were of the man who walked in front, and not of any curious eyes that might be watching from behind.

And so the three of them passed out into the garish moonlight of the uplands-a white land marked with inky splashes where the quarries lay; and then a night-bird cried, and after that the moon was veiled by a passing cloud, and the three seemed hidden by the night.

When Janet brought in her master's breakfast on the morrow her quick eyes noted that his face was grey and lined; but his greeting was pleasant as of old, his air was that of a man who has done some hard and necessary task, and done it, if not without weariness, at least with thoroughness.

'Ye're not just yourself this morning?' hazarded Janet, moving restlessly about the room.

'Ay, just myself, Janet. When is a man less or more? Just myself, with my few good deeds and all my sins to answer for.'

And so he fell-to at his breakfast, and finished it, and afterwards rode far across the moor to minister to a dying member of his flock. It was late when he returned, and Janet met him at the door.

"There's ill news, sir,' she said.

The Parson winced, then pulled himself together. 'What is't, Janet?' he asked.

'Why, they've found poor Squire Norton at the bottom of a quarry-pit, with a broken neck; and I've had my own fears, as you know, that something ill would happen by-and-by. Didn't I tell you, when Squire never came to sup with you these weeks and weeks past, that the black mood was riding him again; and didn't I fear, without daring to lay tongue to it, that he'd make an end of himself one day?'

'Where is he lying?' The Parson's voice was cool and hard, so that Janet wondered at it.

"They carried him to the "Norton Arms," and there's to be a crowner's quest to-morrow. Eh, poor lad! 'Tis a hard world, and I fancied I was hardened to it, master; but I'd a soft corner in my heart for Squire Norton, and it's black to think of his running fair into the mouth of hell like this. There's no hope, I take it, master, for those as take their own lives wilfully?' she added, turning instinctively to the priest, who out of his wisdom, may be, could give her comfort.

The Parson was silent for a while; then, 'Janet,' he said, 'God only knows when there is hope for a man; but be sure that He condemns no man without a hearing.'

And then he went into his study and locked the door; and when he came out, late on the morrow's morn, his face was older, finer, fuller of those mysteries which lie on the threshold of another life.

Dorothy Hirst, meanwhile, was lying ill at Windward Farm. The parish leech, summoned in haste by Farmer Hirst, could make nothing of her case, and Hirst could only tell him that the girl had gone wandering down towards Fairy Dene, and had returned 'all crazy-like and dumb, as if she'd seen the Brown man or the Dog.' For days she lay thus, saying no word, but holding both hands tight across her eyes as if to hide some picture; and the crowner's quest' was held upon the body of Will Norton, and the jury, though each man, knowing the Squire's wildness and his fits of melancholy, thought it a clear case of self-murderthe jury, remembering his station and the love they'd had for him, brought in a verdict of 'death by misadventure'; and the eve of the burial, which was to be in the graveyard of St. John's in the Wilderness, found Dorothy still lying on her bed, still pressing both hands on her eyes and saying naught of good or ill.

It was on the day of the burial that she came out of her lethargy. Farmer Hirst had stolen on tiptoe into her room to ask the farmwife who was nursing her if there were any change; and the woman had shaken her head; and then the two of them had fallen to gossiping of the coming burial.

Dorothy lay quiet as ever, but after her uncle had gone out she left her bed, washed and dressed herself—the farm-wife looking on, as at a miracle-and fastened on her bonnet.

'Why, bairn, whatever ails thee? abroad.'

Thou'rt not fit to go

'They are going to bury him, you said, and I must stand beside the grave,' was all she said; and the farm-wife was too lost in wonderment to check her.

'I have no mourning garb, but he will understand,' the girl murmured, as she went out across the garden, gay with its spring flowers, and up the lane, and into the little kirkyard.

All the countryside was seeking the same bourne, for Will Norton was as well known as Pendle Hill throughout Lonesome Heath, and his untimely end had wakened sympathy. Few noticed Dorothy Hirst as she slipped in among them and found a place

close to the grave's edge; and those who did only wondered where her high spirits had gone and why she wore so pale a face.

And by-and-by Parson Shaw came out from the church, and after him the coffin, carried shoulder-height, and after that, again, the mourners. The sky, clear for the whole week before, had clouded over in the morning, and now began to drip in sullen, scattered rain; the wind had shifted to the east, and wailed among the headstones. Now and then a flake of snow would fall amid the raindrops.

""Tis unchancy curious weather, neighbour Reddhiough,' muttered one farmer to another.

'Ay, 'tis all as bleak as a new-clipt ewe; but so it should be, like, considering the job that Parson's got on hand. Poor Will Norton! Poor Squire! We could better have spared a better lad.'

Grave, reverent, a striking figure, standing at the grave-head in his fluttering surplice, Parson Shaw looked round upon the folk before he spoke the opening words of the service. It was his custom so to do, as if he asked them one and all to show reverence equal to his own.

At first he saw a group of faces; and then he saw one face alone. Dorothy's eyes were fixed upon his, and with a cry of terror she awoke from that half-sleep which had lulled her since the night when she followed Squire and Parson up into the moor. In a half-sleep she had come here, knowing only that Will was dead, and that she must needs go up and stand beside him at the last; but now she was awake, and she remembered all that she had seen beneath the moonlight.

For a moment Parson Shaw faltered; his fingers loosed their hold upon the open Prayer-book, and the wind disordered all the leaves. He found the place again, steadied himself, then went forward with the service. And Dorothy Hirst listened like one in a trance until the Parson said, 'Dust to dust, ashes to ashes,' until the sexton dropped a scattered handful of peat-mould upon the coffin. Only then did Dorothy find voice.

Straight and slim she stood, her face more beautiful in its pallor than ever it had been when the blush of the summer rose was on it.

Thou art the man!' she said, pointing, so clearly that none could make mistake, at Parson Shaw.

VOL. XX.-NO. 117, N.S.

23

The quietness of her voice carried conviction to the onlookerscarried horror, too, and blank dismay.

As for the Parson, he finished the service and then turned to Dorothy.

'What mean you, child?' he asked.

'I followed you-last Sunday night it was—after you had passed me down by Fairy Dene,' said Dorothy, in the same passionless voice. 'I saw a look of murder in your face, and I followed. The dead man here was alive upon that night, and he was walking just ahead of you to Norton House. I followed you both until you overtook him in the middle of the moor, where the quarry-pits are. I saw you fight together; I saw you strike him on the forehead, and saw him fall down the deepest quarry of them all. And now the dead man seems calling-calling to me to avenge him.'

The Parson stood to his full height; and those who witnessed that strange scene have passed on the story to their children and their children's children how strange a dignity-nay, a glory almost-clothed the man from head to foot. The snow no longer came in single flakes, but in a grey, wan shower that made fantastic shapes of church and gravestones; dusted the Parson's head with white, so that his close-cropped hair seemed grey before its time; settled upon the coffin, down below there in its grave, as if to show that there was something colder still than death.

'Friends,' said Parson Shaw, 'I thought that this deed of mine was hidden from all eyes save God's; and with God I have made my peace, and have had assurance of the same. And I was minded to continue here among you, doing God's work as best I might; for I was over-young to die and shirk my task, and by confession there seemed nothing to be gained, but rather lost. That was my purpose; but God saw otherwise, and now I must take my last farewell of you. The story Mistress Hirst has told you is true; I fought with the dead man here, and I drove him down the quarry-face, not meaning to. So now, having already given my soul into God's keeping, and repented of sins big and little that were mine, I will gladly pay my reckoning here on earth and give myself into the law's keeping.'

There were men there who loved Parson Shaw, and the clean, straight manliness of him carried all hearts; yet they were affrighted and perplexed by this disaster, which had come upon them as suddenly as had the snowstorm and the bitter, crying wind,

"Parson, Parson, why did ye kill the man? cried one old farmer