THE LAST OF THE HADDONS.

CHAPTER XXVII.—PHILIP.

I arrived at the Grayleigh Station about seven o'clock in the evening, and walked slowly and enjoyably across the fields, altogether forgetting my dress-troubles as I watched the effects of the red sunset, a more than usually beautiful one. 'I must treat myself to just one look at the dear old beeches, in this light,' I murmured; forgetting fatigue and every other discomfort as I turned from the stile and went down the lane towards the woods. I was standing in mute contemplation of the sunset effects upon the different trees. The air was calm and still; not a leaf moved, as the sunlight stole amongst the majestic trees, crowning one, and robing another from head to foot with its red glory. I was accepting the rebuke with bowed head and clasped hands, when suddenly a sweet, low, girlish laugh—Lilian's laugh—rang out in the stillness, near me.

'There! I told you how it would be. I am not artist enough for that!'

'Try again,' returned a man's voice, clear and strong and in its way as musical as her own.

Whose voice—whose? For a moment I felt as though I were transfixed to the spot where I stood; then with trembling hands, softly parted the thickly covered branches which intervened between me and the speakers. Philip! My heart had already told me that it was he; and one swift glance shewed me that it was the Philip of my dreams—so improved as to bear only an ideal resemblance to the boy-lover I had parted with. He had developed grandly during the nine years we had been separated. Taller and larger in figure, his handsome bronzed face adorned with an auburn beard, whilst his gray eyes retained their old frank kindliness of expression, he looked the personification of manly strength, physical and mental.

Impulsively I advanced a step or two, then shyly and nervously shrank back again, clinging to the low outspreading branches of the tree. Presently, when my foolish heart did not beat quite so wildly—presently.

'Yes; that is better. Now a few bold strokes athwart the horizon. Have you not a coarser brush?'

'Yes. I will run in and fetch one.'

'Cannot I, Miss Maitland? Allow me.'

'O no; auntie could not tell you where to find it.' And away she ran, in the opposite direction to where I stood.

Without a moment's pause, in my anxiety for our meeting to take place whilst he and I were alone, I stepped hastily forward. He was examining Lilian's drawing, when he caught the sound of my footstep and looked up. His eyes met mine—ah Philip! ah me!—with the grave calm gaze of a stranger!

I stood utterly powerless to move or speak; and perhaps I looked more than ever unlike my past self in that moment of bitter anguish. But suddenly the truth flashed upon him.

'Great heavens—Mary!' he ejaculated, catching me in his arms as I swayed towards him.

I was still speechless; and looking down into my face, he added gently, it seemed to me sorrowfully: 'My poor Mary!'

'Am I so changed as that, Philip?' I murmured in a low broken voice.

'I—I fear you have gone through more than you would allow me to know about,' he replied, reddening. Adding a little confusedly: 'How was it that I did not find you at home, Mary?'

'I did not expect you quite so soon as this,' I stammered out quite as confusedly. 'You said a month or six weeks, and it is only three weeks since I received your letter.'

'I—found myself free sooner than I expected; and of course set my face homewards at once. I arrived at Liverpool last evening, and travelled all night, in order to be here in good time in the morning.'

'Did you get here this morning?'

'Yes; you had only left half an hour or so when I arrived. I should have met you, they told me, had I not taken the wrong turning from the stile.'

'Had—you a pleasant voyage?' I asked, terribly conscious that this was not the kind of talk which might be expected between him and me at such a moment.

I think he was conscious of this also. He stood a moment without replying, then every line in his face seemed to grow set and firm, and he said gravely: 'How is it that your friends here do not know that I have come to claim my wife, Mary?'

'I put off telling them from time to time,' I replied in a low voice; 'but I fully intended telling them this evening.'

'Let us go in at once,' he said hurriedly.

He drew my hand under his arm, keeping it firmly clasped in his own, and we went silently towards the cottage. Lilian was turning over the contents of a box in search of the brush she wanted, and Mrs Tipper was nodding over her knitting, fatigued with her day's exertion. Neither saw us approach, and both looked up with astonished eyes when we entered the room; and without a moment's pause, Philip introduced me to them as his