friend,
that a whole life-time of suffering had been compressed into those few
short years that had followed his father's death. The whole plan and
purpose of his youth had been marred; his heart wasted by a passion
that was denied satisfaction; and lastly, just as he was beginning to
turn to his neglected wife with a sympathy and interest that promised
well for her future happiness, suddenly he found his name outraged and
his home forsaken, and the load and terror of an unbearable remorse
laid heavily upon him.

That was a strange winter to Hugh Redmond--the strangest and saddest
he had ever passed; when he spent long, solitary days in the old Hall;
and only Erle--generous, kind-hearted Erle--came now and then to break
his solitude.

Ah! he missed her then.

Sometimes, as he wandered disconsolately through the empty rooms, or
sat by his lonely fireside in the twilight, the fancy would haunt him
that she would come back to him yet--that the door would open, and a
little figure come stealing through the darkness and run into his arms
with a low, glad cry. And sometimes, when he stood in her room and saw
the empty cot over which she used to hang so fondly, a longing would
seize him for the boy whom he had never held in his arms.

By and by, when the spring returned, some of his old strength and
vigor came back, and he was able to join personally in the search,
when a new zest and excitement seemed added to his life; and in the
ardor of the chase he learned to forget Margaret and the shadows of a
too sorrowful past.

When the sweet face of his Wee Wifie seemed to lure him on with the
sad Undine eyes that he remembered so well; when, with the contrariety
of man ever eager for the unattainable, he began to long more and more
to see her; when his anger revived, and impatience with it. And,
though he hardly owned it to himself, both anger and impatience were
born of love.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

VANITAS VANITATIS.

And is there in God's world so drear a place,
Where the loud bitter cry is raised in vain;
Where tears of penance come too late for grace,
As on the uprooted flower the genial rain.

KEBLE.

St. Luke's little summer was over, the ripe golden days that October
binds in her sheaf, the richest and rarest of the year's harvest, had
been followed by chill fogs--dull sullen days--during which flaring
gas-lights burned in Mrs. Watkins'