one not easy to respond to candidly. The doctor could
not say, Your intercourse with us might still be dangerous to the peace
of one heart; and in his inner conviction he believed that it might be.
He only looked at Val; the yearning face, the tearful eyes; and in that
moment it occurred to the doctor that something more than the ordinary
wear and tear of life had worn the once smooth brow, brought streaks of
silver to the still luxuriant hair.

"Do you know that you nearly killed her?" he asked, his voice softening.

"I have known that it might be so. Had _any_ atonement lain in my power;
any means by which her grief might have been soothed; I would have gone
to the ends of the earth to accomplish it. I would even have died if it
could have done good. But, of all the world, I alone might attempt
nothing. For myself I have spent the years in misery; not on that score,"
he hastened to add in his truth, and a thought crossed Dr. Ashton that he
must allude to unhappiness with his wife--"on another. If it will be any
consolation to know it--if you might accept it as even the faintest
shadow of atonement--I can truly say that few have gone through the care
that I have, and lived. Anne has been amply avenged."

The Rector laid his hand on the slender fingers, hot with fever, whiter
than they ought to be, betraying life's inward care. He forgave him from
that moment; and forgiveness with Dr. Ashton meant the full meaning of
the word.

"You were always your own enemy, Val."

"Ay. Heaven alone knows the extent of my folly; and of my punishment."

From that hour Lord Hartledon and the Rectory were not total strangers to
each other. He called there once in a way, rarely seeing any one but the
doctor; now and then Mrs. Ashton; by chance, Anne. Times and again was it
on Val's lips to confide to Dr. Ashton the nature of the sin upon his
conscience; but his innate sensitiveness, the shame it would reflect
upon him, stepped in and sealed the secret.

Meanwhile, perhaps he and his wife had never lived on terms of truer
cordiality. _There were no secrets between them_: and let me tell you
that is one of the keys to happiness in married life. Whatever the past
had been, Lady Hartledon appeared to condone it; at least she no longer
openly resented it to her husband. It is just possible that a shadow of
the future, a prevision of the severing of the tie, very near now, might
have been unconsciously upon her, guiding her spirit to meek