ho
called, and accounted for her pale looks to those whom she was obliged
to see. In the silence of her brother's sick-room, Graeme looked a
great sorrow in the face. In other circumstances, with the necessity
laid upon her to deceive others, she might for a time have deceived
herself; for the knowledge that one's love has been given unsought, is
too bitter to be accepted willingly. But the misery of those long
silent nights made plain to her what the first sharp pang had failed to
teach her.

In the first agony of her self-scorn, she saw herself without excuse.
She was hard and bitter to herself. She might have known, she thought,
how it was with Allan and his cousin. During all those years in which
she had been a stranger to them both, they had loved each other; and
now, with no thought of her, they loved each other still. It was
natural that it should be so, and right. What was she, to think to come
between them with her love?

She was very bitter to herself and unjust in her first misery, but her
feeling changed. Her heart rebelled against her own verdict. She had
not acted an unmaidenly part in the matter. She had never thought of
harm coming to her, or to anyone, out of the pleasant intercourse of
these months--the renewal of their old friendship. If she had sinned
against Lilias, it had been unconsciously. She had never thought of
these things in those days.

If she had only known him sooner, she thought, or not so soon, or not at
all! How should she ever be able to see them again in the old
unrestrained way? How should she be able to live a life changed and
empty of all pleasure?

Then she grew bitter again, and called herself hard names for her folly,
in thinking that a change in one thing must change all her life. Would
not the passing away of this vain dream leave her as rich in the love of
brothers and sister, as ever? Hitherto their love had sufficed for her
happiness, and it should still suffice. The world need not be changed
to her, because she had wished for one thing that she could not have.
She could be freed from no duty, absolved from no obligation because of
this pain; it was a part of her life, which she must accept and make the
best of, as she did of all other things that came upon her.

As she sat one night thinking over the past and the future, wearily
enough, but without the power to withdraw her mind from what was sad in
them, there suddenly came back to her one of Janet