your hands
are!" she said; "and how often you kiss me. What is it you have come to
say to me--good-night or good-by?"

Sydney laid her down again on the pillow, gave her a last kiss, and ran
out of the room.

In the corridor she heard Linley's voice on the lower floor. He was
asking one of the servants if Miss Westerfield was in the house or in
the garden. Her first impulse was to advance to the stairs and to answer
his question. In a moment more the remembrance of Mrs. Linley checked
her. She went back to her bed-chamber. The presents that she had
received, since her arrival at Mount Morven, were all laid out so that
they could be easily seen by any person entering the room, after she had
left the house. On the sofa lay the pretty new dress which she had worn
at the evening party. Other little gifts were arranged on either side of
it. The bracelet, resting on the pedestal of a statue close by, kept a
morsel of paper in its place--on which she had written a few penitent
words of farewell addressed to Mrs. Linley. On the toilet-table three
photographic portraits showed themselves among the brushes and combs.
She sat down, and looked first at the likenesses of Mrs. Linley and
Kitty.

Had she any right to make those dear faces her companions in the future?

She hesitated; her tears dropped on the photographs. "They're as good as
spoiled now," she thought; "they're no longer fit for anybody but me."
She paused, and abruptly took up the third and last photograph--the
likeness of Herbert Linley.

Was it an offense, now, even to look at his portrait? No idea of leaving
it behind her was in her mind. Her resolution vibrated between two
miseries--the misery of preserving her keep-sake after she had parted
from him forever, and the misery of destroying it. Resigned to one more
sacrifice, she took the card in both hands to tear it up. It would have
been scattered in pieces on the floor, but for the chance which had
turned the portrait side of the card toward her instead of the back. Her
longing eyes stole a last look at him--a frenzy seized her--she pressed
her lips to the photograph in a passion of hopeless love. "What does it
matter?" she asked herself. "I'm nothing but the ignorant object of his
kindness--the poor fool who could see no difference between gratitude
and love. Where is the harm of having him with me when I am starving in
the streets, or dying in the workhouse?" The fervid spirit in her that
had never known a