ame.

"Captain Peignton."

Teresa took the words out of her mother's mouth.

"Ask him to come here."

She rose from her seat, and stood waiting, so calm, so dignified, so
arresting in her slim young pallor, that Mrs Mallison's reproaches died
on her lips. She rose in her turn, and stood beside her daughter with
an unconscious air of protection, and then Dane entered, and the
long-dreaded, long-prayed-for meeting had taken place.

He came forward, eager, sympathetic, his own embarrassment forgotten in
affectionate concern. Looking at him as he entered, one divined that
his impulse was to kiss and caress, as he had been accustomed to do in
the early days of his engagement, but that impulse received a check at
the sight of the two waiting figures,--Mrs Mallison in her widow's
trappings, and beside her, the white silent girl. Dane shared Mary's
dazed feeling of meeting a stranger, as he shook Teresa's limp hand,
which yet had strength enough to hold him at arm's length. He heard her
voice enquiring as to the comfort of his journey, offering him tea and
cakes; there was in it a note of detachment which he had never before
heard when she was addressing himself.

As he drank his tea, and listened to the hum of Mrs Mallison's
reiterated reminiscences, Dane was conscious of a feeling of flatness
and disappointment. The year's absence from Chumley had wrought the
inevitable result. He loved Cassandra none the less, but the eyes that
had been blinded by passion could now discern that he had been saved
from a great wrong, and if life still appeared grey and barren, he
acknowledged that he had escaped the harder fate of attaining his desire
at the cost of bitterness of soul. And throughout the months of
struggle, this girl's tenderness had enveloped him, an unfaltering
tenderness, undaunted by neglect. It was only during the last few
months that Dane had begun to realise the healing quality of that
tenderness, to count the days until the arrival of the weekly letter, to
find himself mentally repeating its phrases; slowly, but surely, his
wounded heart had been opening to take comfort in Teresa's love, and
when suddenly she was plunged into trouble, he had hurried to her, with
a genuine impulse of tenderness. In imagination he had seen her face
lighten with joy, had felt her arms around his neck.--It was the most
startling thing in the world to find Teresa _cold_!

When tea was over Mary lifted her gloves and veil mu