hield her from the pains
and griefs of this world.

"I have felt just like you," he says, simply. "But after all, whatever
comes, we have each other. There should be comfort in that. Had death
robbed us--you of me or me of you--then we might indeed mourn. But as
it is there is always hope. Can you not try to find consolation in the
thought that, no matter where I may be, however far away, I am your
lover forever?"

"I know it," says Molly, inexpressibly comforted.

Their trust is of the sweetest and fullest. No cruel coldness has crept
in to defile their perfect love. Living as they are on a mere shadow, a
faint streak of hope, that may never break into a fuller gleam, they
still are almost happy. He loves her. Her heart is all his own. These
are their crumbs of comfort,--sweet fragments that never fail them.

Now he leads her away from the luckless subject of their engagement
altogether, and presently she is laughing over some nonsensical tale he
is telling her connected with the old life. She is asking him
questions, and he is telling her all he knows.

Philip has been abroad--no one knows where--for months; but suddenly,
and just as mysteriously as he departed, he turned up a few days ago at
Herst, where the old man is slowly fading. The winter has been a severe
one, and they think his days are numbered.

The Darleys have at last come to an open rupture, and a friendly
separation is being arranged.

"And what of my dear friend, Mr. Potts?" asks Molly.

"Oh, Potts! I left him behind me in Dublin. He is uncommonly well, and
has been all the winter pottering--by the bye, that is an appropriate
word, isn't it?--reminds one of one of his own jokes--after a girl who
rather fancies him, in spite of his crimson locks, or perhaps because
of them. That particular shade is, happily, rare. She has a little
money, too,--at least enough to make her an heiress in Ireland."

"Poor Ireland!" says Molly. "Some day perhaps I shall go there, and
judge of its eccentricities myself."

"By the bye, Molly," says Luttrell, with an impromptu air, "did you
ever see the Tower?"

"Never, I am ashamed to say."

"I share your sentiments. Never have I planted my foot upon so much as
the lowest step of its interminable stairs. I feel keenly the disgrace
of such an acknowledgment. Shall we let another hour pass without
retrieving our false position? A thousand times 'no.' Go and put your
bonnet on, Molly, and we will make a day of it."