tting impatiently
with clasped fingers, waiting for the signal to unlock them and fling
them open. He could imagine the damp touch of very expectant fingers; the
dying look of life-drinking eyes; and, oh! the helplessness of her limbs
as she sat buoying a heart drowned in bliss.

It was unknown to him that the peril of her uttermost misery had been so
imminent, and the picture conjured of her in his mind was that of a
gentle but troubled face--a soul afflicted, yet hoping because it had
been told to hope, and half conscious that a rescue, almost divine in its
suddenness and unexpectedness, and its perfect clearing away of all
shadows, approached.

Manifestly, by the pallid cast of his visage, he had tasted shrewd and
wasting grief of late. Robert's heart melted as he beheld the change in
Edward.

"I believe, Mr. Blancove, I'm a little to blame," he said. "Perhaps when
I behaved so badly down at Fairly, you may have thought she sent me, and
it set your heart against her for a time. I can just understand how it
might."

Edward thought for a moment, and conscientiously accepted the suggestion;
for, standing under that roof, with her whom he loved near him, it was
absolutely out of his power for him to comprehend that his wish to break
from Dahlia, and the measures he had taken or consented to, had sprung
from his own unassisted temporary baseness.

Then Robert spoke to the farmer.

Rhoda could hear Robert's words. Her fear was that Dahlia might hear them
too, his pleading for Edward was so hearty. "Yet why should I always
think differently from Robert?" she asked herself, and with that excuse
for changeing, partially thawed.

She was very anxious for her father's reply; and it was late in coming.
She felt that he was unconvinced. But suddenly the door opened, and the
farmer called into the darkness,--

"Dahlia down here!"

Previously emotionless, an emotion was started in Rhoda's bosom by the
command, and it was gladness. She ran up and knocked, and found herself
crying out: "He is here--Edward."

But there came no answer.

"Edward is here. Come, come and see him."

Still not one faint reply.

"Dahlia! Dahlia!"

The call of Dahlia's name seemed to travel endlessly on. Rhoda knelt, and
putting her mouth to the door, said,--

"My darling, I know you will reply to me. I know you do not doubt me now.
Listen. You are to come down to happiness."

The silence grew heavier; and now a doubt came shrieking thro