to the heart that was dearest to me. This
was the thought that stayed the words on my lips when I left England,
uncertain whether I should ever come back. If I had loved her less
dearly, if her happiness had been less precious to me, I might have
given way under the hard restraint I imposed on myself, and might have
spoken selfishly at the last moment.

"And now the time of trial is past; the war is over; and, although I
still walk a little lame, I am, thank God, in as good health and in much
better spirits than when I left home. Oh, father, if I should lose her
now--if I should get no reward for sparing her but the bitterest of all
disappointments! Sometimes I am vain enough to think that I made some
little impression on her; sometimes I doubt if she has a suspicion of
my love. She lives in a gay world--she is the center of perpetual
admiration--men with all the qualities to win a woman's heart are
perpetually about her--can I, dare I hope? Yes, I must! Only keep her,
I entreat you, at The Glen Tower. In that quiet world, in that freedom
from frivolities and temptations, she will listen to me as she might
listen nowhere else. Keep her, my dearest, kindest father--and, above
all things, breathe not a word to her of this letter. I have surely
earned the privilege of being the first to open her eyes to the truth.
She must know nothing, now that I am coming home, till she knows all
from my own lips."

Here the writing hurriedly broke off. I am only giving myself credit for
common feeling, I trust, when I confess that what I read deeply affected
me. I think I never felt so fond of my boy, and so proud of him, as at
the moment when I laid down his letter.

As soon as I could control my spirits, I began to calculate the question
of time with a trembling eagerness, which brought back to my mind my own
young days of love and hope. My son was to come back, at the latest, on
the first of November, and Jessie's allotted six weeks would expire on
the twenty-second of October. Ten days too soon! But for the caprice
which had brought her to us exactly that number of days before her time
she would have been in the house, as a matter of necessity, on George's
return.

I searched back in my memory for a conversation that I had held with
her a week since on her future plans. Toward the middle of November,
her aunt, Lady Westwick, had arranged to go to her house in Paris, and
Jessie was, of course, to accompany her--to accompany her