r existence, and her
ideals of existence on to a higher level. How could she tell him this?
The time might come when she could do so, and if ever it did come, she
knew that it would be the happiest moment of her life. But it was not
yet.

"Tell me a little of yourself," she said evasively. "You have been
traveling, have you not?"

"Yes, I have been traveling a little!" he answered. "In Spain I was
taken ill, and Lady Meltoun was kind to me. That is why I am here."

"But you do not say how it was that you were taken ill," she said, her
cheeks suddenly glowing. "You saved her son's life. We saw all about it
in the papers, but of course we did not know that it was you. It was
splendid!"

"If you saw it in the papers at all, depend upon it, it was very much
exaggerated!" he answered quietly. "Your father received my letter, I
suppose?"

"Yes; the cottage has been shut up, just as you desired. Are you ever
coming to take possession again?"

"I hope so--some day--and yet I do not know. There are strange things in
my life, Miss Thurwell, which every now and then rise up and drive me
away into aimless wanderings. Life has no goal for me--it cannot have.
I stand for ever on the brink of a precipice."

There was a sadness in his voice which almost brought the tears into her
eyes--mostly for his sake, partly for her own. For, though he might
never know it, were not his sorrows her sorrows?

"Are they sorrows which you can tell to no one?" she asked softly. "Can
no one help you?"

He shook his head.

"No one."

"And yet no sorrow can last for ever that has not guilt at its root,"
she said.

"Mine will last while life lasts," he answered; "and there is--no guilt
at the root."

"You have taken up another's burden," she said. "Is it well? Do you owe
nothing to yourself, and your own genius? Sorrow may shorten your life,
and the world can ill spare your work."

"There are others who can do my work," he said. "No other can----But
forgive me. I wish to talk of this no more. Tell me of your life since I
left you. Something in your face tells me that it has been well spent.
Let me hear of it."

And, gathering up all her courage, she told him. Piece by piece she took
up the disconnected thoughts and ideas which had come to her, and wove
them together after the pattern of her life--to which he listened with a
calm approval, in which was sometimes mingled a deeper enthusiasm, as
she touched a chord which in his own being