was the unknown sorrow in her
heart, but love was there, too. She was almost happy, without knowing it.

They were to go on horseback, for Chester was eight miles off, and the
thought of a ride in this sparkling mountain air brought a glow to her
cheek, which had been pale the last few days. They started early. The sun
seemed to tip the great green bowl of the valley, and make every leaf
shine and glisten; the road wound among the circling hills, which were
dark with sombre pines, lightened here and there by the fresh greenness
of ash or chestnuts; in some places the horse's hoofs made a velvety
sound on the fallen catkins. A brook followed their path, whispering and
chattering, or hiding away under overhanging bushes, and then laughing
sharply out into the sunshine again. The wind was fresh and fickle;
sometimes twisting the weeds and flowers at the wayside, or sending a
dash of last night's raindrops into their faces from the low branches
of the trees, and all the while making cloud shadows scud over the
fresh-ploughed fields, and up and across the blue, distant hills.

John rested his hand on her bridle, as she stroked her horse's mane. "How
the wind has blown your hair from under your hat!" he said.

She put her gauntleted hand up to smooth it.

"Don't," he said, "it's so pretty; it looks like little tendrils that
have caught the sun."

Helen laughed, and then looked at him anxiously; the sunshine brought out
the worn lines in his face. "You work too hard, dearest; it worries me."

"I have never worked at all!" he cried, with a sudden passion of pain in
his voice. "Oh, my wasted life, Helen,--my life that has wronged and
cheated you!"

"John!" she said, almost frightened. Yet it was characteristic that she
should think this was only a symptom of overwork and bodily weariness.
And when at last they reached the church in Chester, and John lifted her
from her saddle, the anxiety had come again, and all the joy of the
summer morning had left her face. They fastened their horses to one of
the big chestnuts which stood in a stately row in front of the little
white church, and then Helen went inside, and found a seat by one of the
open windows; she secretly pushed the long inside shutter, with its drab
slats turned down, half-way open, so that she might look out across the
burying-ground, where the high blossoming grass nodded and waved over the
sunken graves.

John had followed her, and folded a coat over the back