ore. 'She can never care
for me,' he had thought; 'I have done nothing to deserve her--I am
nobody,' and this had urged him on to do something which might qualify
him in his own eyes, until which he had steadily kept his own counsel
and seen her as seldom as possible.

Then he had written his book; and though he was not such a fool as to
imagine that any woman's heart could be approached through print
alone, he could not help feeling on revising his work that he had done
that which, if successful, would remove something of his own
unworthiness, and might give him a new recommendation to a girl of
Mabel's literary sympathy.

But then his father's summons to Ceylon had come--he was compelled to
obey, and now he had to tear himself away with his secret still
untold, and trust to time and absence (who are remarkably overrated as
advocates by the way) to plead for him.

He felt the full bitterness of this as he held both her hands and
looked down on her fair face with the sweet eyes that shone with a
sister's--but only a sister's--affection. 'She would have loved me in
time,' he thought; 'but the time may never come now.'

He did not trust himself to say much: he might have asked and
obtained a kiss, as an almost brother who was going far away, but to
him that would have been the hollowest mockery.

Suppressed emotion made him abrupt and almost cold, he let her hands
drop suddenly, and with nothing more than a broken 'God bless you,
Mabel, good-bye, dear, good-bye!' he left the house hurriedly, and the
moment after he was alone on the hill with his heartache.

'So he's gone!' remarked Caffyn, as she re-entered the drawing-room
after lingering a few moments in the empty hall. 'What a dear, dull
old plodder it is, isn't it? He'll do much better at planting coffee
than he ever did at law--at least, it's to be hoped so!'

'You are very fond of calling other people dull, Harold,' said Mabel,
with a displeased contraction of her eyebrows. 'Vincent is not in the
least dull: you only speak of him like that because you don't
understand him.'

'I didn't say it disparagingly,' said Caffyn. 'I rather admire
dulness; it's so restful. But as you say, Mabel, I dare say I don't
understand him: he really doesn't give a fellow a fair chance. As far
as I know him, I _do_ like him uncommonly; but, at the same time, I
must confess he has always given me the impression of being, don't you
know, just a trifle heavy. But very likely I'm w