d me, listened when I talked to her and bade me good-bye when I
left her, these would have been depressing meetings for me, because I
thought that I could clearly see that she was holding me at arm's
length with that natural art of a good, true woman,--an art which needs
no practice.

Imagine, then, my surprise, on this second occasion, when we had reached
her door, when she had asked me to have tea and I had been forced to
plead a previous engagement, when she stood there before me smiling,
rosy, the form itself of health, beauty, and vivacity, and when her
glance was raised to meet mine, I suddenly saw her smile fade and I
thought her eyes were filling with tears.

She laughed, however,--a little choking laugh,--and looking down so that
I could not see her face, she said, "I have liked these walks and chats
with you better than any I have ever had." And so she bade me
good-night.

Only when I had gone from her did I recall that she had spoken as if our
companionship was not to continue, as if, for some cause unknown to me,
there was to be an end of our intimacy. The thought made me stop
stock-still upon the pavement.

"And yet," thought I, "might it not be--that she meant only to show that
she is willing to continue our relationship--perhaps forever?"

Loving her as much as I did and wanting her--and no other on the breadth
of the green earth--for my wife, this uncertainty was a torment which I
could not stand. I remembered she had told me that the Judge walked each
evening after his dinner, and I am ashamed to confess that the next
evening dark found me waiting on their street corner, like a scullery
maid's beau, until I saw his stoop-shouldered figure come down the steps
with the lank, grizzled "Laddie" behind, and heard the beat of his
grapevine stick recede down the avenue.

Margaret Murchie let me in. Had I been a wolf she could not have glared
at me more; it was evident that her shrewd old eyes, whatever hidden
knowledge lay behind them, regarded me as a brigand, as a menace, as
some one who had come to take a precious treasure of art from the
drawing-room or the household goddess from the front hall. And as I sat
in the study once more, on the comfortable easy-chair of the Judge, with
the empty feeling in my stomach telling me that my nerves were on edge,
as they used to be when I rowed on our crew and sat listening for the
gun, I was sure that after announcing me she lingered beyond the
curtains, covert