lady,
your father's widow, has promised to provide for you--has she not?"

Esmond said, "Yes. As far as present favor went, Lady Castlewood was
very good to him. And should her mind change," he added gayly, "as
ladies' minds will, I am strong enough to bear my own burden, and make
my way somehow. Not by the sword very likely. Thousands have a better
genius for that than I, but there are many ways in which a young man of
good parts and education can get on in the world; and I am pretty sure,
one way or other, of promotion!" Indeed, he had found patrons already in
the army, and amongst persons very able to serve him, too; and told his
mistress of the flattering aspect of fortune. They walked as though
they had never been parted, slowly, with the gray twilight closing round
them.

"And now we are drawing near to home," she continued, "I knew you would
come, Harry, if--if it was but to forgive me for having spoken unjustly
to you after that horrid--horrid misfortune. I was half frantic with
grief then when I saw you. And I know now--they have told me. That
wretch, whose name I can never mention, even has said it: how you tried
to avert the quarrel, and would have taken it on yourself, my poor
child: but it was God's will that I should be punished, and that my dear
lord should fall."

"He gave me his blessing on his death-bed," Esmond said. "Thank God for
that legacy!"

"Amen, amen! dear Henry," said the lady, pressing his arm. "I knew it.
Mr. Atterbury, of St. Bride's, who was called to him, told me so. And I
thanked God, too, and in my prayers ever since remembered it."

"You had spared me many a bitter night, had you told me sooner," Mr.
Esmond said.

"I know it, I know it," she answered, in a tone of such sweet humility,
as made Esmond repent that he should ever have dared to reproach her. "I
know how wicked my heart has been; and I have suffered too, my dear. I
confessed to Mr. Atterbury--I must not tell any more. He--I said I
would not write to you or go to you--and it was better even that having
parted, we should part. But I knew you would come back--I own that. That
is no one's fault. And to-day, Henry, in the anthem, when they sang
it, 'When the Lord turned the captivity of Zion, we were like them that
dream,' I thought, yes, like them that dream--them that dream. And then
it went, 'They that sow in tears shall reap in joy; and he that goeth
forth and weepeth, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringi