ard him we can easily guess; her hate and fear had
vanished to make room for love--not the love of old times, indeed, but a
deeper and a purer passion; it could never bear fruit, she knew--it was
but a prolonged farewell. To-morrow, or the next day, Death would
interpose between them; but in the mean time they were together, and she
clung to him.

Charley, on the other hand, with whom Balfour had once been such a
favorite, felt, though attentive to his needs, by no means cordially
toward him. Gratitude for the fancied service he had done to his late
father compelled him to give Richard his company; but it was not
accorded willingly, as heretofore. He could not but set down to the
account of his companionship the present frigidity of Agnes, and at
first he had even seen him a material obstacle to his hopes. This
audacious man of the world, who had at one time so excited his
admiration, had suddenly become in his eyes an impudent _roue_, who even
on his sick-bed was only too likely to make their past adventures
together the subject of his talk. True, his mother had told him that Mr.
Balfour was now an altered man; but the young gentleman had entertained
some reasonable doubts of this conversion. His manner to the sick man
was so reserved and cool, indeed, that it seemed to all but Richard (who
guessed the cause of it, and yet felt its effect more bitterly than all)
unkind. This behavior on the part of his former ally did not injure
Balfour in the regards of Agnes; she resented Charley's conduct, and did
her best to redress it by manifesting her own good-will; she had herself
had experience of his shifting moods and causeless changes of demeanor,
and perhaps she was willing to show what small importance she attached
to his capricious humors. Thus it happened that Richard and herself "got
on" together much better (as well, of course, as much more speedily)
than the former could have hoped for; for indeed he had, with reason,
expected to find a bitter enemy in Agnes. He improved this advantage to
the utmost by taking occasion, in Charley's absence, to praise the lad,
under whose displeasure he manifestly lay. She answered that he had not,
at least from Mr. Balfour's lips, deserved such praise.

"Nay, nay," said Richard, gently; "it is I who have not deserved the
lad's good-will; and you, my dear young lady, ought to be the last to
pity me, as I see you do."

"How so?" asked she, in surprise.

"Because," answered he, grav