ittle
Bessie! She was so young, and sweet, and pure. You would have loved her
so much."

"Yes," Lucy said, taking one of Grey's hands, and holding it
caressingly, for she guessed what was in his heart. "Tell me about her
if you can. You say she is dead, and you are sure?"

"Yes, sure," he answered. "I did not see her die, it is true, but I know
she is dead, and I have stood by her grave at Stoneleigh. When I left
you in London I went to her grave, and I believe I left all my life and
soul there with her. I never thought I could talk to any one of her, but
it seems to me now it would be a relief to tell you about her. Shall I?"

"Yes, tell me," Lucy said, and closing his eyes, and leaning back
wearily in his chair, Grey told her everything he knew with regard to
Bessie McPherson, who had died in Rome, and whose grave he had stood
beside in the yard at Stoneleigh; told her, too, of Bessie's engagement
to Neil, of which he had heard from Jack Trevellian, and of Neil's
apparent heartlessness and indifference when he met him in the streets
of Liverpool.

"Poor little Bessie," he said in conclusion. "You don't know what a
weary life she led, or how bravely she bore it; but she is dead, and
perhaps it is better so than if she were the wife of Neil."

"Poor boy," Lucy said, very gently, when he had finished his story, "you
loved Bessie very much."

"Yes, I loved her so much that just to have her mine for one brief month
I believe I would give twenty years of my life," Grey replied, and every
word was a sob, for he was moved as he had never before been moved, even
when he first heard that Bessie was dead.

All thoughts of going on deck were given up for that day, and when the
steward came to help him up the stairs, he helped him instead to his
berth, where he lay with his eyes closed, though Lucy, who sat beside
him, knew he was not asleep, for occasionally a tear gathered on his
long lashes and dropped upon his cheek.

Late in the afternoon Lucy made her way again to the steerage quarters,
for thoughts of the sick girl had haunted her continually, though she
did not now believe her to be the Bessie whom Grey had loved and lost.
But who was she, and who was the Neil of whom she had inadvertently
spoken? and why was she so like the Bessie, Grey had described?

"Blue eyed, golden-haired, with a face like an angel," she repeated to
herself, as she descended the stairs to the lower deck and walked to the
door, around whic