ry," whispered she, and he felt her tears dropping on his
hands. "And Lilias?"

"Graeme, I do not know. I never spoke to her, but I hoped--I believed
till lately--."

He laid his head down on his sister's shoulder. In a little he roused
himself and said,--

"But it is all past now--all past; and it won't bear talking about, even
with you, Graeme, who are the dearest and best sister that ever unworthy
brother had. It was only a dream, and it is past. But I cannot stay
here--at least it would be very much better--"

Graeme sighed.

"Yes, I can understand how it should seem impossible to you, and yet--
but you are right. It won't bear talking about. I have nothing to say
to comfort you, dear, except to wait, and the pain may grow less."

No, there was nothing that Graeme could say, even if Harry would have
listened to her. Her own heart was too heavy to allow her to think of
comfort for him; and so they sat in silence. It seemed to Graeme that
she had never been quite miserable until now. Yesterday she had thought
herself wretched, and now her burden of care for Harry was pressing with
tenfold weight. Why had this new misery come upon her? She had been
unhappy about him before, and now it was worse with him than all her
fears.

In her misery she forgot many things that might have comforted her with
regard to her brother. She judged him by herself, forgetting the
difference between the woman and the man--between the mature woman, who
having loved vainly, could never hope to dream the sweet dream again,
and the youth, hardly yet a man, sitting in the gloom of a first sorrow,
with, it might well be, a long bright future stretching before him.

Sharp as the pain at her own heart was, she knew she should not die of
it. She took no such consolation to herself as that. She knew she must
live the old common life, hiding first the fresh wound and then the
scar, only hoping that as the years went on the pain might grow less.
She accepted the lot. She thought if the darkness of her life never
cast a shadow on the lives of those she loved, she would strive, with
God's help, to be contented.

But Harry--poor Harry! hitherto so careless and light-hearted, how was
he to bear the sorrow that had fallen upon him? Perhaps it was as well
that in her love and pity for her brother, Graeme failed to see how
different it might be with him. Harry would hardly have borne to be
told even by her that his sorrow would pas