r not, had become so much a part of the
pulsing life of a young girl that, when all else of life passed from her
with the weight of years, her heart still remained obedient to him?
Where was he? Had his life gone out like the flame of a candle when it
is blown? Or, if he was anywhere in the universe of living spirits, was
he conscious of the power which he was wielding? Was it a triumph to
him to know that he had come, gay and debonair, in the bloom of his
youth, into this long-existing sanctuary of home, and set aside, with a
wave of his hand, husband, children, and friends, dead and living?

Whatever might be the psychical aspects of the case, one thing was
certain, that the influence of Kinnaird--Kinnaird alone of all those who
had entered into relations with the lady--was useful at this time to
come between her and the distressing symptoms that would have resulted
from the mania of self-starvation. For some months longer she lived in
comfort and good cheer. This clear memory of her youth was oddly
interwoven with the forgetful dulness of old age, like a golden thread
in a black web, like a tiny flame on the hearth that shoots with
intermittent brilliancy into darkness. She was always to see her lover
upon the morrow; she never woke to the fact that 'to-day' lasted too
long, that a winter of morrows had slipped fruitless by.

The interviews between Jeanie Trim and Kinnaird were not monotonous. All
else was monotonous. December, January, February passed away. The
mornings and the evenings brought no change outwardly in the sick-room,
no change to the appearance of the fine old face and still stately
figure, suggested no variety of thought or emotion to the lady's
decaying faculties; but at the hours when she sat and contentedly ate
the food that the maid brought her, her mental vision cleared as it
focused upon the thought of her heart's darling. It was she whose
questions suggested nearly all the variations in the game of imagination
which the young woman so aptly played.

'Was he riding his black mare, Jeanie Trim?'

'I didna see the beast. He stood on his feet when he was tapping at the
door.'

'Whisht! Ye could tell if he wore his boots and spurs, an' his drab
waistcoat, buttoned high?'

'Now that ye speak of it, those were the very things he wore.'

'It'd be the black mare he was riding, nae doubt; he'll have tied her to
the gate in the lane.' Or again: 'Was it in the best parlour that ye saw
him the day?