than either of us, Sam."

"It might easily be lighter than mine," sighed M'Grader, heavily.

Tony sighed too, but said nothing, and they walked along side by side,
with that short jerking stride men pace a deck with, feeling some sort
of companionship, although no words were exchanged between them.

"You were nigh being late," said M'Grader, at last "What detained you on
shore?"

"I saw her!" said Tony, in a low muffled voice.

"You saw her! Why, you told me you were determined not to see her."

"So I was, and so I intended. It came about by mere accident That
strange fellow, Skeffy, you've heard me speak of,--he pushed me plump
into the room where she was, and there was nothing to be done but to
speak to her."

"Well?"

"Well! I spoke," said he, half gruffly; and then, as if correcting the
roughness of his tone, added, "It was just as I said it would be; just
as I told you. She liked me well enough as a brother, but never thought
of me as anything else. All the interest she had taken in me was out of
friendship. She didn't say this haughtily, not a bit; she felt herself
much older than me, she said; that she felt herself better was like
enough, but she never hinted it, but she let me feel pretty plainly that
we were not made for each other; and though the lesson wasn't much to my
liking, I began to see it was true."

"Did you really?"

"I did," said he, with a deep sigh. "I saw that all the love I had borne
her was only paid back in a sort of feeling half compassionately, half
kindly; that her interest in me was out of some desire to make
something out of me; I mean, to force me to exert myself and do
something,--anything besides living a hanger-on at a great house. I have
a notion, too,--Heaven knows if there 's anything in it,--but I 've a
notion, Sam, if she had never known me till now,--if she had never
seen me idling and lounging about in that ambiguous position I
held,--something between gamekeeper and reduced gentleman,--that I might
have had a better chance."

M'Gruder nodded a half-assent, and Tony continued: "I'll tell you why
I think so. Whenever she asked me about the campaign and the way I was
wounded, and what I had seen, there was quite a change in her voice, and
she listened to what I said very differently from the way she heard me
when I talked to her of my affection for her."

"There 's no knowing them! there's no knowing them!" said M'Gruder,
drearily; "and how did it end?"

"It ende