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And the lesser disappear,

       Will the world at your feet seem good to you,

       A vision fair to see?

       Nay, I look upward for one I love

       Who has promised to wait for me.

      For to those who reach the top of the world

       The things of the world seem less

       Than the rungs of the ladder by which they climbed

       To their place of happiness,

       And I think that success and wealth and fame

       Will be the first to pall,

       For they reach their goal but by faith and love

       And God's goodness over all.

      PART I

      CHAPTER

      I.—ADVICE II.—THE NEW MISTRESS III.—THE WHIP-HAND IV.—THE VICTORY V.—THE MIRACLE VI.—THE LAND OF STRANGERS VII.—THE WRONG TURNING VIII.—THE COMRADE IX.—THE ARRIVAL X.—THE DREAM XI.—THE CROSS-ROADS XII.—THE STAKE

      PART 11

      I.—COMRADES II.—THE VISITORS III.—THE BARGAIN IV.—THE CAPTURE V.—THE GOOD CAUSE VI.—THE RETURN VII.—THE GUEST VIII.—THE INTERRUPTION IX.—THE ABYSS X.—THE DESIRE TO LIVE XI.—THE REMEDY

      PART III

      I.—THE NEW ERA II.—INTO BATTLE III.—THE SEED IV.—MIRAGE V.—EVERYBODY'S FRIEND VI.—THE HERO VII.—THE NET VIII.—THE SUMMONS IX.—FOR THE SAKE OF THE OLD LOVE X.—THE BEARER OF EVIL TIDINGS XI.—THE SHARP CORNER XII.—THE COST

      PART IV

      I.—SAND OF THE DESERT II.—THE SKELETON TREE III.—THE PUNISHMENT IV.—THE EVIL THING V.—THE LAND OF BLASTED HOPES VI.—THE PARTING VII.—PIET VREIBOOM VIII.—OUT OF THE DEPTHS IX.—THE MEETING X.—THE TRUTH XI.—THE STORM XII.—THE SACRIFICE XIII.—BY FAITH AND LOVE

      The Top of the World

      PART I

      CHAPTER I

      ADVICE

      "You ought to get married, Miss Sylvia," said old Jeffcott, the head gardener, with a wag of his hoary beard. "You'll need to be your own mistress now."

      "I should hope I am that anyway," said, Sylvia with a little laugh.

      She stood in the great vinery—a vivid picture against a background of clustering purple fruit. The sunset glinted on her tawny hair. Her red-brown eyes, set wide apart, held a curious look, half indignant, half appealing.

      Old Jeffcott surveyed her with loving admiration. There was no one in the world to compare with Miss Sylvia in his opinion. He loved the open English courage of her, the high, inborn pride of race. Yet at the end of the survey he shook his head.

      "There's not room for two mistresses in this establishment, Miss

       Sylvia," he said wisely. "Three years to have been on your own, so

       to speak, is too long. You did ought to get married, Miss Sylvia.

       You'll find it's the only way."

      His voice took on almost a pleading note. He knew it was possible to go too far.

      But the girl facing him was still laughing. She evidently felt no resentment.

      "You see, Jeffcott," she said, "there's only one man in the world I could marry. And he's not ready for me yet."

      Jeffcott wagged his beard again commiseratingly. "So you've never got over it, Miss Sylvia? Your feelings is still the same—after five years?"

      "Still the same," said Sylvia. There was a momentary challenge in her bright eyes, but it passed. "It couldn't be any different," she said softly. "No one else could ever come anywhere near him."

      Jeffcott sighed aloud. "I know he were a nice young gentleman," he conceded. "But I've seen lots as good before and since. He weren't nothing so very extraordinary, Miss Sylvia."

      Sylvia's look went beyond him, seeming to rest upon something very far away. "He was to me, Jeffcott," she said. "We just—fitted each other, he and I."

      "And you was only eighteen," pleaded Jeffcott, "You wasn't full-grown in those days."

      "No?" A quick sigh escaped her; her look came back to him, and she smiled. "Well, I am now anyway; and that's the one thing that hasn't altered or grown old—the one thing that never could."

      "Ah, dear!" said old Jeffcott. "What a pity now as you couldn't take up with young Mr. Eversley or that Mr. Preston over the way, or—or—any of them young gents with a bit of property as might be judged suitable!"

      Sylvia's laugh rang through the vinery, a gay, infectious laugh.

      "Oh, really, Jeffcott! You talk as if I had only got to drop my handkerchief for the whole countryside to rush to pick it up! I'm not going to take up with anyone, unless it's Mr. Guy Ranger. You don't seem to realize that we've been engaged all this time."

      "Ah!" said old Jeffcott, looking sardonic. "And you not met for five years! Do you ever wonder to yourself what sort of a man he may be after five years, Miss Sylvia? It's a long time for a young man to keep in love at a distance. It's a very long time."

      "It's a long time for both of us," said Sylvia. "But it hasn't altered us in that respect."

      "It's been a longer time for him than it has for you," said

       Jeffcott shrewdly. "I'll warrant he's lived every minute of it.

       He's the sort that would."

      Sylvia's wide brows drew together in a little frown. She had caught the note of warning in the old man's words, and she did not understand it.

      "What do you mean, Jeffcott?" she said, with a touch of sharpness.

      But Jeffcott backed out of the vinery and out of the discussion at the same moment. "You'll know what I mean one day, Miss Sylvia," he said darkly, "when you're married."

      "Silly old man!" said Sylvia, taking up the cluster of grapes for which she had come and departing in the opposite direction. Jeffcott was a faithful old servant, but he could be very exasperating when he liked.

      The gardens were bathed in the evening sunlight as she passed through them on her way to the house. The old Manor stood out grey and ancient against an opal sky. She looked up at it with loving eyes. Her home meant very much to Sylvia Ingleton. Until the last six months she had always regarded it as her own life-long possession. For she was an only child, and for the past three years she had been its actual mistress, though virtually she had held the reins of government longer than that. Her mother had been delicate for as long as she could remember, and it was on account of her failing health that Sylvia had left school earlier than had been intended, that she might be with her. Since Mrs. Ingleton's death, three years before, she and her father had lived alone together at the old Manor in complete accord. They had always been close friends, the only dissension that had ever arisen between them having been laid aside by mutual consent.

      That dissension had been caused by Guy Ranger. Five years before, when Sylvia had been only eighteen, he had flashed like a meteor through her sky, and no other star had ever shone for her again. Though seven years older than herself, he was little more than a boy, full of gaiety and life, possessing an extraordinary fascination, but wholly lacking in prospects, being no more than the son of Squire Ingleton's bailiff.

      The Rangers were people of good yeoman extraction, and Guy himself had had a public school education, but the fact of their position was an obstacle which the squire had found insuperable. Only his love for his daughter had restrained him from violent measures. But Sylvia had somehow managed to hold him, how no one ever knew, for he was a man of fiery temper. And the end

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