e in
her life; for she has often told me that she has never known trouble.
But her suffering will be like a grain of sand in comparison with his.
Oh, I know what he is feeling now! To have had her, and then to have
lost her! Poor fellow! it is a cruel fate.'

Michael pondered drearily over the future that lay before them all. How
was he to bear himself, he wondered, under circumstances so
exasperating? She was free, and he knew her to be free--for Cyril would
never claim her--and yet she would regard herself as altogether bound.

He must go away, he thought; not at once--not while she needed him--but
by and by, when things were a little better. Life at Rutherford was no
longer endurable to him; for months past, ever since her engagement, he
had chafed under a sense of insupportable restlessness. A sort of fever
oppressed him--a longing to be free from the influence that dominated
him.

'If I stay here I must tell her how it is with me, and that will only
make her more miserable,' he thought. 'She is not like other women--I
never saw one like her. There is something unreasonable in her
generosity. Girls sometimes say things they do not mean, and then repent
of their impulsiveness; but she will never repent, whether she loves him
or not. She believes that it is her mission to comfort him. Perhaps, if
I had appealed to her, I might have made her believe that she had a
different mission. Oh, my dear, if it only could have been so!'

And he sighed in the bitterness of his spirit; for he knew that in his
unselfishness he had never wooed her.

At that moment there was a light tap at his door, and he started to his
feet with a quick exclamation of surprise as Audrey entered. He had been
thinking of her at that moment, and he almost felt as though the
intensity of his thoughts had attracted her by some unconscious
magnetism; but a glance at her dispelled this illusion.

She was dressed for dinner, and he noticed that there was an air of
unusual sombreness about her attire, as though she felt that any gaiety
of apparel would be incongruous. And as she came closer to him, he was
struck with her paleness and the sadness in her large gray eyes.

'Michael,' she said, in a low voice, 'I want to speak to you. I hope I
am not interrupting you.'

'You never interrupt me,' he returned quickly. 'Besides, I am doing
nothing. Sit down, dear, and then we shall talk more comfortably.' For
he noticed that she spoke with an air of lassi