It was delightful to be once more in the open air, and away from the scenes and thoughts which had been pressing on him for the last three days.

There was new beauty in everything: from the blue mountains which glimmered in the distant sunlight, down to the flat, rich, peaceful vale, with its calm round shadows, where he sat.

The very margin of white pebbles which lay on the banks of the stream had a sort of cleanly beauty about it.

He felt calmer and more at ease than he had done for some days; and yet, when he began to think, it was rather a strange story which he had to tell his sister, in order to account for his urgent summons.

Here was he, sole friend and guardian of a poor sick girl, whose very name he did not know; about whom all that he did know was, that she had been the mistress of a man who had deserted her, and that he feared--he believed--she had contemplated suicide.