all that an old man might to
comfort you."

"But it has been so," she said. "I cannot wash out the past. Knowing
what I did of myself, Sir Peregrine, I should never have put my foot
over your threshold."

"I wish I might hear its step again upon my floors. I wish I might
hear that light step once again."

"Never, Sir Peregrine. No one again ever shall rejoice to hear either
my step or my voice, or to see my form, or to grasp my hand. The
world is over for me, and may God soon grant me relief from my
sorrow. But to you--in return for your goodness--"

"For my love."

"In return for your love, what am I to say? I could have loved you
with all my heart had it been so permitted. Nay, I did do so. Had
that dream been carried out, I should not have sworn falsely when I
gave you my hand. I bade her tell you so from me, when I parted with
her."

"She did tell me."

"I have known but little love. He--Sir Joseph--was my master rather
than my husband. He was a good master, and I served him truly--except
in that one thing. But I never loved him. But I am wrong to talk
of this, and I will not talk of it longer. May God bless you, Sir
Peregrine! It will be well for both of us now that you should leave
me."

"May God bless you, Mary, and preserve you, and give back to you the
comforts of a quiet spirit, and a heart at rest! Till you hear that I
am under the ground you will know that there is one living who loves
you well." Then he took her in his arms, twice kissed her on the
forehead, and left the room without further speech on either side.

Lady Mason, as soon as she was alone, sat herself down, and her
thoughts ran back over the whole course of her life. Early in her
days, when the world was yet beginning to her, she had done one evil
deed, and from that time up to those days of her trial she had been
the victim of one incessant struggle to appear before the world as
though that deed had not been done,--to appear innocent of it before
the world, but, beyond all things, innocent of it before her son.
For twenty years she had striven with a labour that had been all but
unendurable; and now she had failed, and every one knew her for what
she was. Such had been her life; and then she thought of the life
which might have been hers. In her earlier days she had known what
it was to be poor, and had seen and heard those battles after money
which harden our hearts, and quench the poetry of our natures. But it
had not been alt