s must have been strangely moved before his hand set down those
words:

"Let me come back to you! My darling, let me put my hand round you, and
guard you from all the world. As my wife they shall never touch you.
I have learnt to love you more wisely, more tenderly, than of old; you
shall have perfect freedom. Lyndall, grand little woman, for your own
sake be my wife!

"Why did you send that money back to me? You are cruel to me; it is not
rightly done."

She rolled the little red pencil softly between her fingers, and her
face grew very soft. Yet:

"It cannot be," she wrote; "I thank you much for the love you have shown
me; but I cannot listen. You will call me mad, foolish--the world would
do so; but I know what I need and the kind of path I must walk in. I
cannot marry you. I will always love you for the sake of what lay by me
those three hours; but there it ends. I must know and see, I cannot be
bound to one whom I love as I love you. I am not afraid of the world--I
will fight the world. One day--perhaps it may be far off--I shall find
what I have wanted all my life; something nobler, stronger than I,
before which I can kneel down. You lose nothing by not having me now;
I am a weak, selfish, erring woman. One day I shall find something to
worship, and then I shall be--"

"Nurse," she said; "take my desk away; I am suddenly so sleepy; I will
write more tomorrow." She turned her face to the pillow; it was the
sudden drowsiness of great weakness. She had dropped asleep in a moment,
and Gregory moved the desk softly, and then sat in the chair watching.
Hour after hour passed, but he had no wish for rest, and sat on,
hearing the rain cease, and the still night settle down everywhere. At
a quarter-past twelve he rose, and took a last look at the bed where she
lay sleeping so peacefully; then he turned to go to his couch. Before he
had reached the door she had started up and was calling him back.

"You are sure you have put it up?" she said, with a look of blank terror
at the window. "It will not fall open in the night, the shutter--you are
sure?"

He comforted her. Yes, it was tightly fastened.

"Even if it is shut," she said, in a whisper, "you cannot keep it out!
You feel it coming in at four o'clock, creeping, creeping, up, up;
deadly cold!" She shuddered.

He thought she was wandering, and laid her little trembling body down
among the blankets.

"I dreamed just now that it was not put up," she said, looki