r intended
you to give it up as you have done. I always wished to offer
yourself and your sister an income sufficient for your maintenance.
I have not done so before because I hoped that poverty would seem
so hateful to you you would gradually come to think better of my
offer. Is it so, Edgar? Will you recognize my love, my fidelity, my
devotion at last? One word and all your troubles cease, you are
back again in the beautiful old home, and I am happy. Only one
word. From your ever loving, devoted

CORALIE."

I need not repeat my answer. It was, No! I was no more free, no more
inclined to return to Crown Anstey than I had been to remain there.

After that there was a long silence. Agatha told me herself all about
Lord Abberley; that he had been very kind to her, was very fond of her,
but she had told him our story, and he had most generously forborne to
press his suit.

Time was doing much for me; every hour was golden in its acquisition of
blanks in my life were filled by books. God sent every one the same
comfort I had.

[Transcriber's note: One or more lines appear to be missing from the
previous paragraph.]

CHAPTER XIV.

It was just three years since I had left Crown Anstey. Lord Winter told
me I should have some weeks to myself, but he was so incessantly
occupied I never liked to ask for them.

I had never seen or heard anything of Crown Anstey since I left it. At
Harden Manor all was the same, unchanged and unaltered.

One morning, when I went into the library, a letter lay waiting for me.
I saw that it was Coralie's handwriting, and my first impulse was to
burn it unread. Why should she write to me again? Her letters only
pained me. I threw it aside and began to work--in the busy occupation of
the morning I forgot all about it.

I did not open it until evening. It was from Coralie, but it only held
these few words:

"Edgar--My boy--my beautiful boy--is dying. Come to me; for if I
lose him I shall die, too. In my distress I would rather have you
near me than any one else.

CORALIE TREVELYAN."

Was it true, or was it an invention? Poor little Rupert dying! Why, no
one had even told me he was ill. Perhaps I had better go. No mother
could be so cold and so wicked as to feign death for her only child.

Lord Winter raised no objections.

"It was not very convenient," he said, but of course he "must bow to
necessity."

I was