had he not also recognized
me, and turned upon me with an oath, wanting to know what I did there.

I had heard of their address, I said, and that misfortune had overtaken
his father, and had come to see whether I could do anything to help
them.

Could I lend him a ten-pound note there and then? he asked, with an ugly
laugh; and when I said, I had no such sum, he broke out again in a
torrent of abuse.

I would have pushed past him, but he seized me by the arm, and swung me
round facing him. I still strove to get away, when I heard his wife's
imploring voice upon the stairs; and he spoke words that made the little
blood that was in me surge swift and hot to my face. In a moment I had
wrenched myself free, and struck him full on the mouth with my clenched
hand. He was cowed for a moment, and turned white, but there were two or
three people looking on by that time.

"You miserable old pantaloon," he screamed, as he made a rush at me.

But I had one hand on the knob of the door, and, swinging round as
though I worked on a pivot, I caught him full between the eyes, and sent
him sprawling among the hats and umbrellas that he had knocked down in
his fall. Then I closed the door, and walked away. The page is turned
for ever now, I muttered to myself. I cannot even meet her father again.
Poor old gentleman!--he died--he died too soon; but not before I'd seen
him and held his hand in mine. But she had never been to the old home;
and on inquiring at the place where they had lodged, it was believed
that they had gone abroad after the death of their two children.

So that was the bitter ending, I thought. And all that dead past was to
be closed like a page in a book that is read and clasped.

Yes; but the book is reopened sometimes, where a sprig of rue has been
placed to mark between the leaves.

I didn't change. I was long past changing. And I followed my old
pursuits; went to my old haunts; wore my old clothes, as I do now, from
day to day.

So years went on, until one dreary afternoon in November--one bright and
sunny afternoon it might have been for its influence on my dim
calendar--I was rummaging one of the boxes of a bookstall in Holborn,
when the keeper of it came out and put two or three battered volumes
among the rest. Instinctively I took one of them up and opened it. A
great throb came into my heart and made me reel; for it was a
prayer-book, and there on the title-page was _her_ name--_hers_, and in
_my_ hand