r first memorable interview, at long
intervals, he had written to her and she to him. Of her hospital life,
till to-night, she had never told him much. Her letters had been the
passionate outpourings of a nature sick of itself, and for the moment of
living; full of explanations which really explained little; full too of
the untaught pangs and questionings of a mind which had never given any
sustained or exhaustive effort to any philosophical or social question,
and yet was in a sense tortured by them all--athirst for an impossible
justice, and aflame for ideals mocked first and above all by the
writer's own weakness and defect. Hallin had felt them interesting, sad,
and, in a sense, fine; but he had never braced himself to answer them
without groans. There were so many other people in the world in the same
plight!

Nevertheless, all through the growth of friendship one thing had never
altered between them from the beginning--Hallin's irrevocable judgment
of the treatment she had bestowed on Aldous Raeburn. Never throughout
the whole course of their acquaintance had he expressed that judgment to
her in so many words. Notwithstanding, she knew perfectly well both the
nature and the force of it. It lay like a rock in the stream of their
friendship. The currents of talk might circle round it, imply it, glance
off from it; they left it unchanged. At the root of his mind towards
her, at the bottom of his gentle sensitive nature, there was a
sternness which he often forgot--she never.

This hard fact in their relation had insensibly influenced her greatly,
was constantly indeed working in and upon her, especially since the
chances of her nursing career had brought her to settle in this
district, within a stone's throw of him and his sister, so that she saw
them often and intimately. But it worked in different ways.
Sometimes--as to-night--it evoked a kind of defiance.

A minute or two after he had made his remark about Aldous, she said to
him suddenly,

"I had a letter from Mr. Wharton to-day. He is coming to tea with me
to-morrow, and I shall probably go to the House on Friday with Edith
Craven to hear him speak."

Hallin gave a slight start at the name. Then he said nothing; but went
on sorting some letters of the day into different heaps. His silence
roused her irritation.

"Do you remember," she said, in a low, energetic voice, "that I told you
I could never be ungrateful, never forget what he had done?"

"Yes, I