PART I

      I. Evening in Glenavelin
     II.  Lady Manorwater’s guests
    III.  Upland water
     IV.  Afternoon in A garden
      V. A conference of the powers
     VI.  Pastoral
    VII.  The makers of empire
   VIII.  Mr. Wratislaw’s advent
     IX.  The Episodes of A day
      X. Home truths
     XI.  The pride before A fall
    XII.  Pastoral and tragedy
   XIII.  The pleasures of A conscience
    XIV.  A gentleman in Straits
     XV.  The nemesis of A coward
    XVI.  A movement of the powers
   XVII.  The brink of the Rubicon
  XVIII.  The further brink
    XIX.  The bridge of broken hearts

PART II

     XX.  The Eastern road
    XXI.  In the heart of the hills
   XXII.  The outposts
  XXIII.  The dinner at Galetti’s
   XXIV.  The tactics op A chief
    XXV.  Mrs. Logan’s ball
   XXVI.  Friend to friend
  XXVII.  The road to Forza
 XXVIII.  The hill-fort
   XXIX.  The way to Nazri
    XXX.  Evening in the hills
   XXXI.  Events south of the border
  XXXII.  The blessing of gad

THE HALF-HEARTED

PART I

CHAPTER I

EVENING IN GLENAVELIN

From the heart of a great hill land Glenavelin stretches west and south to the wider Gled valley, where its stream joins with the greater water in its seaward course.  Its head is far inland in a place of mountain solitudes, but its mouth is all but on the lip of the sea, and salt breezes fight with the flying winds of the hills.  It is a land of green meadows on the brink of heather, of far-stretching fir woods that climb to the edge of the uplands and sink to the fringe of corn.  Nowhere is there any march between art and nature, for the place is in the main for sheep, and the single road which threads the glen is little troubled with cart and crop-laden wagon.  Midway there is a stretch of wood and garden around the House of Glenavelin, the one great dwelling-place in the vale.  But it is a dwelling and a little more, for the home of the real lords of the land is many miles farther up the stream, in the moorland house of Etterick, where the Avelin is a burn, and the hills hang sharply over its source.  To a stranger in an afternoon it seems a very vale of content, basking in sun and shadow, green, deep, and silent.  But it is also a place of storms, for its name means the “glen of white waters,” and mist and snow are commoner in its confines than summer heats.