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Langley looked down at him with a mingled feeling of warm pity and deep bewilderment. “Forget you?” he echoed.

The dullness seemed to have dropped away from the commonplace face as if it had been a veil; the eyes were burning with a hungry pathos and fire and passion; they were raised to his and held him with the power of an indescribable anguish. “Dunnot forget as I’m here,” the voice growing sharp and intense, “ready an’ eager an’ waitin’ fur th’ toime to come. Let me do summat or brave summat or suffer summat, for God’s sake!”

When the young man rode away it was with a sense of weight and pain upon him. He was mystified. People were often grateful to him, but their gratitude was not such as this; this oppressed and disturbed him. It was suggestive of a mental condition whose existence seemed almost impossible. What a life this poor fellow must have led since the simplest kindliness aroused within him such emotion as this! “It is hard to understand,” he murmured; “it is even a little horrible. One fancies these duller natures do not reach our heights and depths of happiness and pain, and yet—-Cathie, Cathie, my dear,” breaking off suddenly and turning his face upward to the broad free blue of the sky as he quickened his horse’s pace, “let me think of you; this hurts me.”

But he was drawn nearer to the boy, and did his best to cheer and help him. His interest in him grew as he saw him oftener, and there was not only the old interest, but a new one. Something in the lad’s face–a something which had struck him as familiar even at first–began to haunt him constantly. He could not rid himself of the impression it left upon him, and yet he never found himself a shade nearer a solution of the mystery.

“Raynor,” he said to him on one of the evenings when he had stopped before the shanty, “I wish I knew why your face troubles me so.”

“Does it trouble yo’, mester?”

“Yes,” with a half laugh, “I think I may say it troubles me. I have tried to recollect every lad in Deepton, and I have no remembrance of you.”

“Happen not, mester,” meekly. “I nivver wur much noticed, yo’ see: I’m one o’ them as foak is more loike to pass by.”

An early train arriving next morning brought visitors to the Creek–a business-like elderly gentleman and his daughter, a pretty girl, with large bright eyes and an innocent rosy face, which became rosier and prettier than ever when Mr. Ed ward Langley advanced from the depot shed with uncovered head and extended hand. “Cathie!” he said, when the first greetings had been interchanged, “what a delight this is to me! I did not hope for such happiness as this.”

“Father wanted to see the mines,” answered Cathie, sweetly demure, “and I–I wanted to see Black Creek; your letters were so enthusiastic.”

“A day will suffice, I suppose?” her paternal parent was wandering on amiably. “A man should always investigate such matters for himself. I can see enough to satisfy me between now and the time for the return train.”

“I cannot,” whispered Langley to Cathie: “a century would not suffice. If the sun would but stand still!”

The lad Seth was late for dinner that day, and when he entered the house Bess turned from her dish-washing to give him a sharp, troubled look, “Art tha’ ill again?” she asked.

“Nay,” he answered, “nobbut a bit tired an heavy-loike.”

He sat down upon the door-step with wearily-clasped hands, and eyes wandering toward the mountain, whose pine-crowned summit towered above him. He had not even yet outlived the awe of its majesty, but he had learned to love it and draw comfort from its beauty and strength.

“Does tha’ want thy dinner?” asked Bess.

“No, thank yo’,” he said; “I couldna eat.”

The dish-washing was deserted incontinently, and Bess came to the door, towel in hand, her expression at once softened and shaded with discontent. “Summat’s hurt yo’,” she said. “What is it? Summat’s hurt yo’ sore.”