had turned on her--had become
a faint image in my mind! As to my friends at Lerwick, from Sir James
downward, they had all kindly come to see me--and I had secretly and
ungratefully rejoiced when their departure left the scene free for the
return of my nurse. In two days more the Government vessel was to sail
on the return voyage. My wrist was still painful when I tried to use it;
but the far more serious injury presented by the re-opened wound was
no longer a subject of anxiety to myself or to any one about me. I was
sufficiently restored to be capable of making the journey to Lerwick,
if I rested for one night at a farm half-way between the town and Mr.
Dunross's house. Knowing this, I had nevertheless left the question of
rejoining the vessel undecided to the very latest moment. The motive
which I pleaded to my friends was--uncertainty as to the sufficient
recovery of my strength. The motive which I now confessed to myself was
reluctance to leave Miss Dunross.

What was the secret of her power over me? What emotion, what passion,
had she awakened in me? Was it love?

No: not love. The place which Mary had once held in my heart, the place
which Mrs. Van Brandt had taken in the after-time, was not the place
occupied by Miss Dunross. How could I (in the ordinary sense of the
word) be in love with a woman whose face I had never seen? whose beauty
had faded, never to bloom again? whose wasted life hung by a thread
which the accident of a moment might snap? The senses have their share
in all love between the sexes which is worthy of the name. They had no
share in the feeling with which I regarded Miss Dunross. What _was_ the
feeling, then? I can only answer the question in one way. The feeling
lay too deep in me for my sounding.

What impression had I produced on her? What sensitive chord had I
ignorantly touched, when my lips touched her hand?

I confess I recoiled from pursuing the inquiry which I had deliberately
set myself to make. I thought of her shattered health; of her melancholy
existence in shadow and solitude; of the rich treasures of such a heart
and such a mind as hers, wasted with her wasting life; and I said to
myself, Let her secret be sacred! let me never again, by word or deed,
bring the trouble which tells of it to the surface! let her heart be
veiled from me in the darkness which veils her face!

In this frame of mind toward her, I waited her return.

I had no doubt of seeing her again, sooner or