certainty he
disappeared--really died to all his previous life."

"But I cannot conceive of Basil lying for any purpose."

"He disappeared. His family and friends took on themselves the means
they thought most likely to make that disappearance a finality."

"Have you heard anything, seen anything?"

"One night just before I left the West a traveler asked me for a night's
lodging. He had been prospecting in British America in the region of
the Klondike, and was full of incidental conversation. Among many other
things he told me of a wonderful sermon he had heard from a young man in
a large mining camp. I did not give the story any attention at the time,
but after he had gone away it came to me like a flash of light that the
preacher was Basil Stanhope."

"Oh, Tyrrel, if it was--if it was! What a beautiful dream! But it is
only a dream. If it could be true, would he forgive Dora? Would he come
back to her?"

"No!" Tyrrel's voice was positive and even stern. "No, he could never
come back to her. She might go to him. She left him without any reason.
I do not think he would care to see her again."

"I would say no more, Tyrrel. I do not think as you do. It is a dream,
a fancy, just an imagination. But if it were true, Basil would wish no
pilgrimage of abasement. He would say to her, 'Dear one, HUSH! Love is
here, travel-stained, sore and weary, but so happy to welcome you!' And
he would open all his great, sweet heart to her. May I tell Dora some
day what you have thought and said? It will be something good for her to
dream about."

"Do you think she cares? Did she ever love him?"

"He was her first love. She loved him once with all her heart. If it
would be right--safe, I mean, to tell Dora----"

"On this subject there is so much NOT to say. I would never speak of
it."

"It may be a truth"

"Then it is among those truths that should be held back, and it is
likely only a trick of my imagination, a supposition, a fancy."

"A miracle! And of two miracles I prefer the least, and that is that
Basil is dead. Your young preacher is a dream; and, oh, Tyrrel, I am
so tired! It has been such a long, long, happy day! I want to sleep. My
eyes are shutting as I talk to you. Such a long, long, happy day!"

"And so many long, happy days to come, dearest."

"So many," she answered, as she took Tyrrel's hand, and lifted her fur
and fan and gloves. "What were those lines we read together the night
before we were married?