before you, and you are young and strong. You
would not allow any one else but yourself to call you beaten, and I will
not hear it from your lips."

"Oh, Maud!" cried Ned brokenly, "you always know what to say, you always
say the right thing! How can I thank you? If girls only understood
what angels they might be to men,--if they would remind us oftener that
this world is not all,--what a help it would be! We are out on the
battlefield, and it is difficult to remember these things, especially
when we are so hard pressed that our thoughts are engrossed with the
struggle. I felt hard and bitter when I came into this room, for it's a
terrible thing to face ruin,--a girl cannot imagine how terrible, for
she is shielded from such trouble,--but you have put fresh life into me
by your sweet words."

Maud smiled faintly, her brows drawn together in painful fashion. She
was saying to herself that she knew well what it was to see life robbed
of its dearest hope, and realising, as many a girl has done before her,
that one of the sorest features of her trial was that she could neither
ask nor receive sympathy from her friends. The reflection brought her
thoughts back to Lilias, and she was once more about to suggest sending
a message to the Grange, when the door burst open and Lilias herself
danced into the room. What a contrast to the pale and depressed couple
seated on the sofa! Just returned from a delightful visit to the
Grange, love of admiration gratified by Mr Vanburgh's courtesy and
Gervase's elaborate compliments, her hands full of trophies in the shape
of flowers and fruit, she looked the impersonation of happiness and
prosperity, and singularly out of sympathy with her companions. She was
half-way across the room before she recognised Ned, and the sudden
change which then passed over her face was far from flattering to his
vanity.

"You!" she gasped, in bewilderment. "Is it you? When did you come?
I--I never knew. You said nothing in your letter about coming."

"No; I wanted to tell you the news myself!" Ned rose and stood beside
her, not attempting any lover-like greetings, but holding her hand
tightly in his own. His face was pathetic in its wistfulness, and dread
of the pain which he was about to inflict, but it was in the tone of a
father speaking to a child that he said gently--

"I have bad news for you, Lilias--the news which I have been dreading.
I have sent in my resignation to the heads of