"You could live quietly on that in many places."

"I don't want simply to live. I want to work and redeem myself."

"You have worked hard enough and long enough," said Charles; and he might have added, as was in his mind, "And it has all ended in this."

"I would like to help you," he said, as he moved slowly towards the door, striving hard to keep the stiff upper lip Graeme had enjoined on him. "But I don't think you should expect me to do what I know to be wrong. I'll do what I said——"

Mr. Pixley shook his head. His face was gray, his lips pinched in. Charles went out and closed the door behind him.

But he could not leave him so. He had known from the first that he would have to help him, right or wrong.

He opened the door again quietly and went in. His father was sitting at the table with his head in his hands. Charles laid down the money he had, with Graeme's assistance, prepared, laid his hand on his shoulder for a moment, and went quietly out again, and out of the house.

It was a miserable business altogether. He never forgot that last sight of him sitting at the mean little table in the mean little room with his head in his hands.

XI

Charles went soberly down the green slopes towards the sea, and presently discovered the dismantled fort they had seen from the steamer as they ran up the Swinge that morning. And sitting on the broken wall of a gun platform was a figure which he knew by the dress to be Miss Penny.

She had evidently been on the look-out for him. She stood up and waved her hand, and he waved his in reply, and plunged down the slope. His heart was sore at what had just passed. It turned gratefully to one whom he knew to be full of sympathy for him.

When he reached the foot of the hill, they were crossing the causeway which led from the fort to the shore.

"Well, old man, you've got through with it?" said Graeme; and all their faces showed the anxiety that was in them to know how he had prospered.

He nodded. "Let's go back and sit there for a few minutes. I feel like a whipped dog;" and they all went back to the fort, which, in its dismantlement and ruin, whispered soothingly of the rest and peace that sometimes lie beyond broken hopes and strenuous times.

"Well, how did you find him?" asked Graeme, as they seated themselves on the broken wall again, with the fair blue plain of the sea dimpling and dancing in front.

"Very broken, but as obstinate as ever," said Charles gloomily. "Wouldn't listen to my proposal, says he's set on redeeming himself, and so on. I offered him all I could, but it was no use. So I left him—"

"You never did—" began Miss Penny, with a pained look on her face.

"I did. But I couldn't leave it so. I went back, and he was sitting with his head in his hands.... I just gave him all I had brought and came away.... I know it was all wrong—"

"It wasn't. You did quite right," said Miss Penny vehemently.

"I don't suppose any of us would have done differently when it came to the point. I don't really see what else you could have done," said Graeme.

"He reminded me of all he had done for me when I was a boy, and so on, and told me that if I didn't help him there was no hope for him. I did my best—"

"You have done quite right, Charles," said Margaret. "I do hope he will get away all right."

As he gave them the details of his interview, their quiet sympathy restored him by degrees to himself. The bruised, whipped soreness wore off, to some extent at all events, and there remained chiefly a feeling of thankfulness that the matter was over, and that, in doing the only thing possible to him, if he offended against the law, he had still done what commended itself to his own heart and to those whose good opinion he chiefly valued.

If there were no signs of merriment about them as they wandered quietly about the strand, if they still bore something of the aspect of a funeral party, it was at all events the aspect of a party after the funeral. Their corpse was laid, so far as they were concerned, and their thoughts and hearts were more at liberty to turn to other matters.

They have none of them ever cared greatly for Alderney, and they always speak of it as a remote, unfriendly, melancholy, and slow little place, lacking the gem-like beauty and joyous vitality of Sark. But then one's outlook is always coloured by one's inlook, and an overcast mind sees all things shadowed.

They lunched at the Scott Hotel, in the garden, and felt better than they had done for two days when their feet once more trod the deck of the Courier.

The southern cliffs were filmy blue in the distance, Ortach and the Casquets were dim against the horizon, and Charles and Miss Penny stood together in the stern looking back over the long straight track of the boat, and thinking both of the lonely one in the mean little house in St. Anne. Margaret and Graeme had stood watching for a time, and had then stolen away forward. Their outlook was ahead, where Sark was rising boldly out of the blue waters.

"I doubt if we'll ever hear anything more of him," said Charles, with a sigh at thought of it all.

"You will always remember that you have done your duty by him. You could not have done more."

"You have been very kind to me all through, very kind, all of you. And you especially.... Hennie—will you marry me?"

And she looked up at him with a happy face, and said quietly, "Yes, I will. I believe we can make one another very happy."

"I'm sure we can. Come along and tell the others;" and they also turned from the past and went forward.



WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.



Hearts in Exile._

With Photogravure Frontispiece by HAROLD COPPING. THIRD EDITION. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.

"Exceptionally powerful, vivid, and realistic.... Sketched with a generous hand and bold touches, the characters hold trie reader's sympathies throughout. The most graphic, vigorous, and lifelike presentment of Russian administrative barbarity which we recollect to have ever come across."—Daily Telegraph.



A Princess of Vascovy.

Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.

"Mr. Oxenham tells a good exciting story with great swing and zest. It seems almost unnecessary to recommend a story that is in every way worthy of the pen that produced 'Barbe of Grand Bayou.' 'A Princess of Vascovy' is just as picturesquely romantic and just as full of incident and adventure as Mr. Oxenham's most famous work."—Athenaum.



White Fire.

Red cloth, 2s. net; red leather, 2s. 6d. net.

"'White Fire' combines religion and adventure; but the date is modern, and the admirable missionary and his undaunted wife and comrades protect their converts in the South Seas from kidnappers and other pests with the aid of Maxims and Winchester rifles. Mr. John Oxenham has already proved his descriptive and analytic powers, and these strong-hearted champions of morality are not less original than their surroundings are romantic. A tidal wave is among the trials of the hero's constancy. The illustrations by Mr. Grenville Manton are good."—Athenaum.



Barbe of Grand Bayou.

Red cloth, 2s. net; red leather, 2s. 6d. net.

"There is a fascination about Mr. John Oxenham's books which grows upon one. Barbe is a clean-cut, fine drawn character, human, alive, womanly, real. Her history is so simply related, with such convincing straightforwardness that one is bound to admit it could not have happened otherwise. It had to be. The tribulations of the pair of lovers are delightfully set forth with the art of the true story teller. Quite one of the best books of the winter season; worth buying and reading; not merely ordering from the library."—Academy.



Giant Circumstance.

Illustrated by CHARLES HORRELL.

THIRD EDITION. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.

"A hearty and manly book, written in telling style of which Mr. Oxenham has proved himself a master."—Times.

"Told in Mr. Oxenham's usual spirited and vivid style. Those who relish a good story well told will welcome 'Giant Circumstance,' and will set it on a level with the best of Mr. Oxenham's books."—British Weekly.

"A good story—should prove popular."—Athenaeum.

"Bright, healthy, and interesting, will strengthen his position in the regard of readers who like a good story of the doings of wholesome unexaggerated characters."—Daily Telegraph.



Rising Fortunes.

Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.



Carette of Sark.

Illustrated. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.

"All who either know the Channel Islands or love a full-blooded, exciting story, should speedily make the acquaintance of Carette."—Pall Mall Gazette.

"No one who likes tales of adventure—and who does not—could wish for a better tale than this. It is of Sark, in the beginning of last century, when its people were peaceable and law-abiding, save on the question of 'free trade' and when privateering was a legitimate business; so naturally adventurers were more easily come by than in conventional days like these. The youth who tells the tale, one Philip Carre by name, comes by them all too easily for his liking. He is scarcely out of one peril before he is into another, and quite split-hairbreadth are his escapes from the Terrible Torode of Herm. And it is all on account of Carette, charming Carette, the pride of the island, and worth many dangers to win."—Daily Chronicle.

THE END