e for a
madman, if I have not given up all hope, and venture to ask whether
circumstances may not have arisen to induce you to change your mind? In
me, you will never find a change."

She kept her eyes cast down. "Do not ask me now," she said, with
quivering lips. "I have need of all my resolution to do what has to be
done, and it has been sorely tried."

"Not now?" he whispered, "another time then?"

"My dear kind friend," she said, now looking him full in the face; "if
you really be a friend to me, wait until that young moon that is just
rising, has run its course, before you come here again. There is a
strange chaos in my mind. You would hardly understand it, if I were to
try to explain, and unravel all its mysteries. They will unravel
themselves in time, and then you may come for an answer to your
question. A clear straight-forward answer. This is all I can give you
for to-day."

"It is more than I dared to hope; more than I deserve," he said, with
deep emotion, and bent low to kiss the hand she had offered him as
farewell, and so they parted.

* * * * *

Four weeks later, the same pale crescent that had lighted our
yellow-haired young friend through the woods that evening, was shining
in full refulgence upon a street of a great city, in the quarter
chiefly inhabited by students and artists. Close to the open window of
a small lodging on the third story, catching the last glimpse of fading
light, a young man was seated before a great drawing board; with bold
pencil drawing great broad sepia lines, to relieve with light and shade
a correct and tasteful architectural ornament.

His landlady came in with a letter in her hand. "From home;" she said,
laid it down upon the table, and left the room again. The colour-box
and drawing board were thrown aside, and in an instant, with trembling
haste, he had broken the seal.

The young artist seated himself upon the windowsill, and read as
follows:

"My dear spoiled boy! That we have been almost three weeks parted, is a
fact I should find incredible, did I not know my almanack too well for
reasonable disbelief.

"There, the day of your departure has been branded with a thick black
stroke, and the days on which your letters came, distinguished with
bright red ones. It is a fact, for nineteen long days we have been
deprived of our six-foot son, and for how much longer, is past all
present reckoning.

"I began several letters