rance of
even Philip's illness, and detailed triumphantly the preparations at
Redclyffe, hinting that they must send timely notice of their return,
or they would disappoint the tenantry, who intended grand doings, and
concluding with a short lecture on the inexpediency of lingering in
foreign parts.

'Poor Markham,' said Guy.

She understood; but these things did not come on her like a shock now,
for he had been saying them more or less ever since the beginning of his
illness; and fully occupied as she was, she never opened her mind to the
future. After a long silence, Guy said--

'I am very sorry for him. I have been making Arnaud write to him for
me.'

'Oh, have you?'

'It was better for you not to do it, Arnaud has written for me at night.
You will send it, Amy, and another to my poor uncle.'

'Very well,' said she, as he looked at her.

'I have told Markham,' said he presently, 'to send you my desk. There
are all sorts of things in it, just as I threw them in when I cleared
out my rooms at Oxford. I had rather nobody but you saw some of them.
There is nothing of any importance, so you may look at them when you
please, or not at all.'

She gazed at him without answering. If there had been any struggle
to retain him, it would have been repressed by his calmness; but the
thought had not come on her suddenly, it was more like an inevitable
fate seen at first at a distance, and gradually advancing upon her. She
had never fastened on the hope of his recovery, and it had dwindled in
an almost imperceptible manner. She kept watch over him, and followed
his thoughts, without stretching her mind to suppose herself living
without him; and was supported by the forgetfulness of self, which gave
her no time to realize her feelings.

'I should like to have seen Redclyffe bay again,' said Guy, after a
space. 'Now that mamma is coming, that is the one thing. I suppose I had
set my heart on it, for it comes back to me how I reckoned on standing
on that rock with you, feeling the wind, hearing the surge, looking
at the meeting of earth and sky, and the train of sunlight.' He spoke
slowly, pausing between each recollection,--'You will see it some day,'
he added. 'But I must give it up; it is earth after all, and looking
back.'

Through the evening, he seemed to be dwelling on thoughts of his own,
and only spoke to tell her of some message to friends at Redclyffe, or
Hollywell, to mention little Marianne Dixon, or some oth