ir. This is the fourth day. She had to go to Scotland. A
matter of duty, you understand, and the doctors would not let me go.
Not that I would have allowed them to stop me, but she was on their
side. Now, thank God! it is over, and she may be here at any moment."

"Here!"

"Yes, here. This headland and bench were old friends of ours thirty
years ago. The people with whom we stay are not, to tell the truth,
very congenial, and we have, little privacy among them. That is why we
prefer to meet here. I could not be sure which train would bring her,
but if she had come by the very earliest she would have found me
waiting."

"In that case----" said I, rising.

"No, sir, no," he entreated, "I beg that you will stay. It does not
weary you, this domestic talk of mine?"

"On the contrary."

"I have been so driven inwards during these few last days! Ah, what a
nightmare it has been! Perhaps it may seem strange to you that an old
fellow like me should feel like this."

"It is charming."

"No credit to me, sir! There's not a man on this planet but would feel
the same if he had the good fortune to be married to such a woman.
Perhaps, because you see me like this, and hear me speak of our long
life together, you conceive that she is old, too."

He laughed heartily, and his eyes twinkled at the humour of the idea.

"She's one of those women, you know, who have youth in their hearts,
and so it can never be very far from their faces. To me she's just as
she was when she first took my hand in hers in '45. A wee little bit
stouter, perhaps, but then, if she had a fault as a girl, it was that
she was a shade too slender. She was above me in station, you know--I
a clerk, and she the daughter of my employer. Oh! it was quite a
romance, I give you my word, and I won her; and, somehow, I have never
got over the freshness and the wonder of it. To think that that sweet,
lovely girl has walked by my side all through life, and that I have
been able----"

He stopped suddenly, and I glanced round at him in surprise. He was
shaking all over, in every fibre of his great body. His hands were
clawing at the woodwork, and his feet shuffling on the gravel. I saw
what it was. He was trying to rise, but was so excited that he could
not. I half extended my hand, but a higher courtesy constrained me to
draw it back again and turn my face to the sea. An instant afterwards
he was up and hurrying down the path.

A woman was co