, and I was just on
the point of turning back. You always appear to me when I most need
you.'

'You wanted to speak to me, Wilfrid?'

'When do I not? My life seems so thin and poor; only your breath gives
it colour. Emily, I shall ask so much of you. I have lost all faith in
myself; you must restore it.'

They stood close to each other, hand in hand, looking down at the dark
flow.

'If I had not met you, Wilfrid,' she said, or whispered, 'I think my end
must have been there--there, below us. I have often come here at night.
It is always a lonely place, and at high tide the water is deep.'

His hand closed upon hers with rescuing force.

'I am carrying a letter,' Emily continued, 'that I was going to post
before I went in. I will give it you now, and I am glad of the
opportunity; it seems safer. I have written what I feel I could never
say to you. Read it and destroy it, and never speak of what it
contains.'

She gave him the letter, and then he walked with her homewards.

On the morrow, shortly after breakfast, he was sitting in his study,
when a knock came at the door. He bade enter, and it was Beatrice. She
came towards him, gave her hand mechanically, and said--

'Can you spare me a few minutes?'

He placed a chair for her. Her eyes had not closed since they last
looked at him; he saw it, though the expression of her features was not
weariness.

'There is one thing, Wilfrid, that I think I have a right to ask you.
Will you tell me why she left you, years ago?'

Her tone was that of one continuing a conversation. There might have
been no break between yesterday and to-day. We cannot always gather from
the voice what struggle has preceded utterance.

Wilfrid turned away. On the table lay that letter of Emily's; he had
read it many times, and was reading it when the knock disturbed him.
With a sudden movement, he took up the sheet of paper and held it to
Beatrice.

'It is there--the reason. I myself have only known it a few hours. Read
that. I have no right to show it you--and no right to refuse.'

Beatrice held the letter for a brief space without turning her eyes upon
it. Wilfrid walked to a distance, and at length she read. Emily had
recounted every circumstance of her father's death, and told the history
of her own feelings, all with complete simplicity, almost coldly. Only
an uncertainty in the hand-writing here and there showed the suffering
it had cost her to look once more into the very eyes