e plainly to Mr. Van Brandt, unreservedly
acknowledging that she had contemplated another future than the future
now set before her. She did not conceal that there had once been an old
love in her heart, and that a new love was more than she could command.
Esteem, gratitude, and regard she could honestly offer; and, with time,
love might come. For the rest, she had long since disassociated herself
from the past, and had definitely given up all the hopes and wishes once
connected with it. Repose for her father, and tranquil happiness for
herself, were the only favors that she asked of fortune now. These she
might find under the roof of an honorable man who loved and respected
her. She could promise, on her side, to make him a good and faithful
wife, if she could promise no more. It rested with Mr. Van Brandt to say
whether he really believed that he would be consulting his own happiness
in marrying her on these terms.

Mr. Van Brandt accepted the terms without a moment's hesitation.

They would have been married immediately but for an alarming change
for the worse in the condition of Dermody's health. Symptoms showed
themselves, which the doctor confessed that he had not anticipated when
he had given his opinion on the case. He warned Mary that the end might
be near. A physician was summoned from Edinburgh, at Mr. Van Brandt's
expense. He confirmed the opinion entertained by the country doctor. For
some days longer the good bailiff lingered. On the last morning, he
put his daughter's hand in Van Brandt's hand. "Make her happy, sir," he
said, in his simple way, "and you will be even with me for saving your
life." The same day he died quietly in his daughter's arms.

Mary's future was now entirely in her lover's hands. The relatives in
Glasgow had daughters of their own to provide for. The relatives in
London resented Dermody's neglect of them. Van Brandt waited, delicately
and considerately, until the first violence of the girl's grief had worn
itself out, and then he pleaded irresistibly for a husband's claim to
console her.

The time at which they were married in Scotland was also the time at
which I was on my way home from India. Mary had then reached the age of
twenty years.

The story of our ten years' separation is now told; the narrative leaves
us at the outset of our new lives.

I am with my mother, beginning my career as a country gentleman on the
estate in Perthshire which I have inherited from Mr. Germa