u are ready, my pen is
ready."

The unacknowledged reserve that had come between us since we had last
spoken together, was, I believe, as painfully felt by her as by me. We
were no doubt longing to break through it on either side--if we had only
known how. The writing of the letter would occupy us, at any rate. I
made another effort to give my mind to the subject--and once more it was
an effort made in vain. Knowing what I wanted to say to my mother, my
faculties seemed to be paralyzed when I tried to say it. I sat cowering
by the fire--and she sat waiting, with her writing-case on her lap.

CHAPTER XXII. SHE CLAIMS ME AGAIN.

THE moments passed; the silence between us continued. Miss Dunross made
an attempt to rouse me.

"Have you decided to go back to Scotland with your friends at Lerwick?"
she asked.

"It is no easy matter," I replied, "to decide on leaving my friends in
this house."

Her head drooped lower on her bosom; her voice sunk as she answered me.

"Think of your mother," she said. "The first duty you owe is your
duty to her. Your long absence is a heavy trial to her--your mother is
suffering."

"Suffering?" I repeated. "Her letters say nothing--"

"You forget that you have allowed me to read her letters," Miss Dunross
interposed. "I see the unwritten and unconscious confession of anxiety
in every line that she writes to you. You know, as well as I do, that
there is cause for her anxiety. Make her happy by telling her that you
sail for home with your friends. Make her happier still by telling her
that you grieve no more over the loss of Mrs. Van Brandt. May I write
it, in your name and in those words?"

I felt the strangest reluctance to permit her to write in those terms,
or in any terms, of Mrs. Van Brandt. The unhappy love-story of my
manhood had never been a forbidden subject between us on former
occasions. Why did I feel as if it had become a forbidden subject now?
Why did I evade giving her a direct reply?

"We have plenty of time before us," I said. "I want to speak to you
about yourself."

She lifted her hand in the obscurity that surrounded her, as if
to protest against the topic to which I had returned. I persisted,
nevertheless, in returning to it.

"If I must go back," I went on, "I may venture to say to you at parting
what I have not said yet. I cannot, and will not, believe that you are
an incurable invalid. My education, as I have told you, has been the
education of a medical