my own, my
very own?"

With his heart full of this new fondness and warmth, Stephen went at an
early hour to seek Mercy. As he entered the house, he was sensibly
affected by the expression still lingering of the yesterday's grief. The
decorations of evergreens and flowers were still untouched. Mercy and
Lizzy had made the whole house gay as for a festival; but the very
blossoms seemed to-day to say that it had been a festival of sorrow. A
large sheaf of callas had stood on a small table at the head of the
coffin. The table had not yet been moved from the place where it stood
near the centre of the room; but it stood there now alone, with a strange
expression of being left by accident. Stephen bent over it, looking into
the deep creamy cups, and thinking dreamily that Mercy's nature was as
fair, as white, as royal as these most royal of graceful flowers, when the
door opened and Mercy came towards him. He sprang to meet her with
outstretched arms. Something in her look made the outstretched arms fall
nerveless; made his springing step pause suddenly; made the very words
die away on his lips. "O Mercy!" was all he could say, and he breathed it
rather than said it.

Mercy smiled a very piteous smile, and said, "Yes, Stephen, I am here."

"O Mercy, it is not you! You are not here. What has done this to you? Did
you so love that man?" exclaimed Stephen, a sudden pang seizing him of
fiercest jealousy of the dead, whom he had never feared while he was
living.

Mercy's face contracted, as if a sharp pain had wrenched every nerve.

"No, I did not love him; that is, not as you mean. You know how very
dearly I did love him, though."

"Dear darling, you are all worn out. This shock has been too much for you.
You are not well," said Stephen, tenderly, coming nearer to her and taking
her hand. "You must have rest and sleep at once."

The hand was not Mercy's hand any more than the voice had been Mercy's
voice. Stephen dropped it, and, looking fixedly at Mercy's eyes,
whispered, "Mercy, you do not love me as you used to."

Mercy's eyes drooped; she locked her hands tightly together, and said, "I
can't, Stephen." No possible form of words could have been so absolute. "I
can't!" "I do not," would have been merciful, would have held a hope, by
the side of this helpless, despairing, "I can't."

Stephen sank into a chair, and covered his eyes with his hands. Mercy
stood still, near the white callas; her hands clasped, and her eye