uttering of her heart, and that tears of late are so ready to
her, she covers her face with her hands, and, with the action of a
tired and saddened child, turning, hides it still more effectually upon
his breast.

"It is all very miserable," he says, after a pause, occupied in trying
to soothe.

"Ah! is it not? What trouble can be compared with it? To find him dead,
without a word, a parting sign!" She sighs heavily. "The bitterest
sting of all lies in the fact that but for my own selfishness I might
have seen him again. Had I returned home as I promised at the end of
the month I should have met my brother living; but instead I lingered
on, enjoying myself,"--with a shudder,--"while he was slowly breaking
his heart over his growing difficulties. It must all have happened
during this last month. He had no care on his mind when I left him; you
know that. You remember how light-hearted he was, how kindly, how good
to all."

"He was indeed, poor--poor fellow!"

"And some have dared to blame him," she says, in a pained whisper. "You
do not?"

"No--_no_."

"I have been calculating," she goes on, in a distressed tone, "and the
very night I was dancing so frivolously at that horrible ball he must
have been lying awake here waiting with a sick heart for the news that
was to--kill him. I shall never go to a ball again; I shall never dance
again," says Molly, with a passionate sob, scorning, as youth will, the
power of time to cure.

"Darling, why should you blame yourself? Such thoughts are morbid,"
says Luttrell, fondly caressing the bright hair that still lies loosely
against his arm. "Which of us can see into the future? And, if we
could, do you think it would add to our happiness? Shake off such
depressing ideas. They will injure not only your mind, but your body."

"I do not think I should feel it all quite so much," says Molly, in a
low, miserable, expressionless voice, "if I could only see him now and
then. No, not in the flesh--I do not mean that,--but if I could only
bring his face before my mind I might be content. For hours together I
sit, with my hands clasped before my eyes, trying to conjure him up,
and I cannot. Almost every casual acquaintance I possess, all the
people whose living or dying matters to me not at all, rise at my
command; but he never. Is it not curious?"

"Perhaps it is because your mind dwells too much upon him. But tell me
of your affairs," says Luttrell, abruptly but kindly, leading h