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For a while he played with the idea of marrying again, but nothing came of it and in time he gave up the notion. He had always been of solitary, eccentric habit, and his marriage to poor Mary Ann had alternately bored and exasperated him. He would sooner be free—and as for the inheritance; that must go to the Oxenbrigges. They were no doubt as good as Alard in the eyes of heaven and soon would be as good in the eyes of Leasan. And his daughter Bess was to marry one of them.

Was that Ned Oxenbrigge with them now in the garden? He could see the gaily coloured dresses standing out of the twilight among the tall bushes he had planted. Laughter came to him, and somehow both laughter and colour seemed strangely out of place in that encroaching dusk, which was swallowing up the garden, beginning with the groves and shrubberies and finishing with the grey lawns where the colours moved.

"Hey!" he called. "Hey! Wretches—come in: the dew's falling."

A titter of laughter answered him and one or two colours detached themselves and came floating toward him.