de him to be hopeful about himself."

With that, the gentleman left me; the servant said it was the doctor.

The change in my benefactor, since I had seen him last, startled and
distressed me. He lay back in a large arm-chair, wearing a grim black
dressing-gown, and looking pitiably thin and pinched and worn. I do
not think I should have known him again, if we had met by accident. He
signed to me to be seated on a little chair by his side.

"I wanted to see you," he said quietly, "before I die. You must have
thought me neglectful and unkind, with good reason. My child, you have
not been forgotten. If years have passed without a meeting between us,
it has not been altogether my fault--"

He stopped. A pained expression passed over his poor worn face; he
was evidently thinking of the young wife whom he had lost. I
repeated--fervently and sincerely repeated--what I had already said
to him in writing. "I owe everything, sir, to your fatherly kindness."
Saying this, I ventured a little further. I took his wan white hand,
hanging over the arm of the chair, and respectfully put it to my lips.

He gently drew his hand away from me, and sighed as he did it. Perhaps
_she_ had sometimes kissed his hand.

"Now tell me about yourself," he said.

I told him of my new situation, and how I had got it. He listened with
evident interest.

"I was not self-deceived," he said, "when I first took a fancy to you
in the shop. I admire your independent feeling; it's the right kind of
courage in a girl like you. But you must let me do something more for
you--some little service to remember me by when the end has come. What
shall it be?"

"Try to get better, sir; and let me write to you now and then," I
answered. "Indeed, indeed, I want nothing more."

"You will accept a little present, at least?" With those words he took
from the breast-pocket of his dressing-gown an enameled cross attached
to a gold chain. "Think of me sometimes," he said, as he put the chain
round my neck. He drew me to him gently, and kissed my forehead. It
was too much for me. "Don't cry, my dear," he said; "don't remind me of
another sad young face--"

Once more he stopped; once more he was thinking of the lost wife. I
pulled down my veil, and ran out of the room.

IV.

THE next day I was on my way to the north. My narrative brightens
again--but let us not forget Sir Gervase Damian.

I ask permission to introduce some persons of distinction:--Mrs.
Fosdyke,