nting music. So she waited
silently, and as she waited the silence grew and seemed to enclose her
within cruel, relentless walls which opened only to allow her glimpses
into the vista of future lonely years. Just once more she broke that
silence. "Oh, darling, come back! I WILL RISK IT," she said. But no
step drew near, and, kneeling with her face buried in her clasped
hands, Jane suddenly realised that Garth Dalmain had accepted her
decision as final and irrevocable, and would not return.

How long she knelt there after realising this, she never knew. But at
last comfort came to her. She felt she had done right. A few hours of
present anguish were better than years of future disillusion. Her own
life would be sadly empty, and losing this newly found joy was costing
her more than she had expected; but she honestly believed "she had done
rightly towards him, and what did her own pain matter?" Thus comfort
came to Jane.

At last she rose and passed out of the silent church into the breezy
sunshine.

Near the park gates a little knot of excited boys were preparing to fly
a kite. Jimmy, the hero of the hour, the centre of attraction, proved
to be the proud possessor of this new kite. Jimmy was finding the day
glorious indeed, and was being happy. "Happy ALSO," Garth had said. And
Jane's eyes filled with tears, as she remembered the word and the tone
in which it was spoken.

"There goes my poor boy's shilling," she said to herself sadly, as the
kite mounted and soared above the common; "but, alas, where is his joy?"

As she passed up the avenue a dog-cart was driven swiftly down it.
Garth Dalmain drove it; behind him a groom and a portmanteau. He lifted
his hat as he passed her, but looked straight before him. In a moment
he was gone. Had Jane wanted to stop him she could not have done so.
But she did not want to stop him. She felt absolutely satisfied that
she had done the right thing, and done it at greater cost to herself
than to him. He would eventually--ah, perhaps before so very long--find
another to be to him all, and more than all, he had believed she could
be. But she? The dull ache at her bosom reminded her of her own words
the night before, whispered in the secret of her chamber to him who,
alas, was not there to hear: "Whatever the future brings for you and
me, no other face will ever be hidden here." And, in this first hour of
the coming lonely years, she knew them to be true.

In the hall she met Pauline