PART II. (continued 2)

'Killed or missing, it's about the same,' my father told her, and Hildred's eyes, raised with a look of eagerness, sank again listlessly. 'I suppose it is,' she said sighing.

I said no more then. It was better for her that the wearing suspense should be at an end. And after all, was there any real ground of hope? I believed, though I could not feel, that Cuthbert was dead.

'If only I had seen him, to say good-bye,' Hildred said, 'I think I could bear it better. I wish he were buried in the churchyard, where we could go and see his grave.'

Ah! I wished so too. That silent darkening down of fear had been very dreadful, but the fitful glimmer that was most likely false, but that would gleam out now and again, from among the ashes of our dead hopes, was to my mind more dreadful still.

These were the thoughts of many months.

I find that it is not easy to tell one's story. You may mean to tell it all, yet you find that the greater part you have left out altogether.

For so many things go to the making up of a man's life. It is not all sweet nor all bitter. There is in it much brightness, and more shadow, and a great deal besides that is neither cloud nor sunshine, neither bitterness nor sweetness, which fills up the measure of each passing day. One wave does not make a river—rather many; some dance and sparkle, touched by the sunlight from above, while all the time the under-current is flowing sorrowfully on.

And we were busy about many things apart from Cuthbert, were glad and sorry, anxious and hopeful, had plans and thoughts, cares and pleasures, that had nothing to do with him. Still the thought of him lay beneath it all.

It was a busy year for me at Furzy Nook; for as Farmer Foster grew older I had of course more and more on my hands. Time passed wonderfully quick—Sunday after Sunday marking off a week that ended before I had thought of it as much more than begun. We could let the weeks go as they would now, without counting every one as a fresh link in a chain of waiting. There was nothing to wait for, or to hope for any longer. So they all said.

It was better for Hildred that it should be so.

After that dark winter was past, she began to brighten with the spring. She was no longer the merry careless child she used to be. All that was over. But the flower that the rain had beaten down, lifted its head again slowly.

It was not that she had any thought of seeing Cuthbert again. Her last hope died on that Sunday after Christmas Day. No one was of the same mind as I was. Everybody called him 'poor Cuthbert,' and spoke of him as dead—everybody, odd to say, excepting good old Farmer Foster. Directly he heard my doubts he went far beyond me, into a perfect certainty of hopefulness. 'We shall have him home upon us, never fear, before we know where we are,' he used to say; and as I walked beside his pony over the Furzy Nook fields, he told me again and again the same half-forgotten story, the end of which he never could remember, about some prisoners who escaped out of a French prison when he was a lad. I repeated the story, such as it was, to Hildred, but it did not cheer her. I thought she looked rather more grave than usual afterwards. 'Catching at straws still, Willie,' she said, shaking her head.

I suppose it was another straw I caught at later in the summer. One market-day at Morechester, as I stood near the Cross, I heard the ill-omened sounds of fifes and drums, and presently a recruiting party marched down on us from the High Street. It carried me back in a moment to that evening three years ago. I almost seemed to see the purple sky above the village street, and the lights shining through the inn-windows, and then the ribands in Cuthbert's hat, as the loud voice of the recruiting sergeant sounded in my ears.

No wonder that I recalled it so vividly, for as they drew near, I saw that this was the same man who had enlisted Cuthbert. I knew his upright figure and broad good-humoured face directly. The people round were laughing at the very same jokes that I remembered hearing in the street of Wyncliffe.

I made my way up to him in the crowd. He had seen Cuthbert after we had, and might somehow know what had become of him. There were two lads near him staring up in open-mouthed admiration of his scarlet coat and soldierly stride.

He turned away from them to me. 'No, I don't want to enlist,' I said, in answer to the accustomed speech. 'I am come to ask you a question. Do you mind one Cuthbert Franklyn, that you enlisted here three years ago?'

He shook his head with a loud laugh. 'If I'd got to remember half their names, my fine fellow, I'd need to have a good memory. Move on, will you?'

Walking on beside him I managed to tell him hurriedly, what we had heard of Cuthbert. 'Was there a chance of his ever coming back?'

'Why not?' he answered, in his careless, jolly voice. 'I don't know why he shouldn't. We're not all killed, you see, that go for soldiers. Ah! it's a fine life, my lads,'—this to the two boys who were still following him. 'No life like it,' and so on.

Those lightly-spoken words of his, the only ones of encouragement I had ever heard, fell upon me like a blow, and struck me speechless.

'Then you think that he may be living yet,' I asked again, presently.

'You there still!' He looked back good-humouredly. 'Well, there's no knowing. I can't say.'

'He was reported missing.'

'Ah! reported missing, that sounds bad. Still, I've known stranger things come round. Where was he killed, say you?'

'At the battle of Conjeveram, I think they called the place.'

'Conjeveram—seems to me I've heard a talk of prisoners taken there, but the outlandish Indian names are all alike. It's a chance, I tell you. Now, then.'

He had no more time for me. I went home with a beating heart, to tell Hildred. She was sitting in the honeysuckle-shaded porch of Clifford's house, spinning. The bees hummed in the sunshine, the waterfall splashed, Clifford's children were shouting at the river's edge, and Hildred was singing a low murmur of song that blended with the whirr of her wheel and the buzzing of the bees.

'Hildred,' I said, going up to her, 'I have seen Cuthbert's recruiting sergeant, and he thinks he may be alive.'

Hildred started, her hand fell, and the thread broke.

'He does not see why he should not come home some day,' I went on.

She got up, very pale.

'Cuthbert alive!' she said, dreamily. 'Where is he?'

'Oh Hildred, I don't know; I only said he might be living still.'

'Didn't you say he was coming?'

'No, no, it might be just possible.'

Hildred burst out crying.

'What's all this?' said Martha Clifford, coming up with a pail of water on her head. 'What's Hildred crying for?'

'I gave her a fright,' I answered repentantly, and I told Martha what I had heard and said.

'Dear me, Willie, leave the girl alone, do,' said Martha roughly. 'Don't begin all that over again. We had enough of it before we knew he was killed; watching and worrying, worrying and watching, from morning till night. Let bygones be bygones.'

'But I can't forget——'

'Well, others can if you can't. Let the dead rest, Willie Lisle.'

'If we could be quite sure——'

'And so you ought to be. It's all a whimsey you've got into your head. Cuthbert's dead enough, poor lad, but it's my belief you wouldn't be satisfied if you had seen him buried down yonder with your own eyes.'

'Don't, Martha,' said Hildred, brushing away her tears and coming to my side.

'It's enough to vex a saint,' Martha went on, 'let alone me, just when the girl was beginning to leave off fretting, and to take hold a little. I won't have it done, and so I tell you, Willie.'

'I wouldn't harm Hildred,' I said sorrowfully, 'but she and I can't forget; after what grandmother said before she died, and all. You mind that, Martha.'

Martha gave a sort of moan.

'It's only that he's more faithful than any of us,' said Hildred.

'Well, let him be faithful by himself. I won't have him coming upsetting everything, and you breaking your thread, Hildred, and going on like that. I'm ashamed of you.'

Hildred did look so pale for a time after this, that I saw Martha was right in part, and that I ought not to have spoken when there was nothing real to tell. She was rough-spoken, was poor Martha, but she was a just woman. No one ever could have a better neighbour, as we proved that next winter.

It was a hard winter. The snow came early, and lay long; the river, for the first time in many years, was frozen over. I suppose I noticed the cold more for my father's sake. All the autumn he had been ailing, but he would not give in as long as he could keep about. When Christmas came he was lying between life and death in a rheumatic fever.

We never thought he would see another spring, but somehow he struggled through it, and by March he was downstairs again, changed, and aged, and bent, but still a wonder, even to the doctor himself.

Martha Clifford and Hildred nursed him as if they had been daughters of his own, and he was 'ill to nurse,' as the old women say. Martha never got a word of thanks from him for all her goodness, but sometimes he laid his hand kindly on Hildred's head, and smiled at her.

It was pretty to see her trying to cheer him as he sat, hour after hour, with his eyes fixed gloomily on the fire, beating his stick slowly on the floor and saying nothing. It was a hard thing for him to believe, what his stiff aching limbs yet told him too plainly, that he would never be fit for any work again. Hildred did not lose patience, even with his darkest moods. Perhaps she guessed that they were darker still whenever she was away from him.

One wet blowy evening in that same month of March, I chanced to be kept much later than usual at Furzy Nook. Long before I got home it had grown dark, though I made as much haste as I could, thinking that my father's fire would have gone out, and that he would be tired of being by himself.

But when I lifted the latch, the firelight was shining cheerfully through the room, and Hildred sat on the wooden stool at my father's feet. I remember standing still for a moment to watch them. My father's head was bent down, and he was talking to her. Hildred sat looking up at him, her chin on her hand, and the fire lighted both their faces.

It looked so comfortable to see her there—so comfortable and homelike, sitting beside our fire, and keeping my father company. If I had known that I should find her when I came in from the stormy darkness, she, whom once I used to fancy would be always there with us!

My father looked round as I came in, but Hildred's face was turned away from me, and she did not see me. She gave a great start and stood up hurriedly when I touched her shoulder.

'Did I frighten you?' I said; 'you ought to have gone home, Hildred, before it came on to rain like this.'

'Does it rain?' she asked, without looking up.

The wind answered her, as it dashed the rain in a noisy gust against the window.

'You will get wet,' I said, watching her putting on her cloak and hood.

'I don't mind. I only waited because your father was alone, and I didn't like to leave him. I must go home now.'

'Thank you, my dear,' my father said. 'I wish you had not got to go home, but that you could stay here with us always.'

It was my father's way to say things like that to Hildred. They were hard to bear—hard to be reminded of what might have been—hard to listen to, and to say nothing.

I must let her go out now into the rainy darkness. I could never keep her—never—safe sheltered in the warmest corner of our fireside.

As my father spoke, Hildred bent down, still hurriedly, to bid him good night. He kept her hand, and said, 'Hildred, lass, will you come home here, and stay for always? Will you be my daughter?'

I took a step forward and laid my hand on Hildred's arm to draw her back. What was my father saying? He looked up at me and did not let go her hand. 'No one has been so faithful to you as he has. Won't you let him bring you home at last?'

Hildred could scarcely have heard the last words. The door closed behind her almost before they were spoken. I did not try to follow her, though she had gone out alone into the storm. I saw her put her hands over her face as she went out, to hide her tears.

'Father, what have you done?'

He had taken up his pipe and was lighting it slowly. It seemed strange that he should look at me so quietly in my great doubt and pain.

'No harm, lad, no harm. I should be glad to see you comfortable with her before I die.'

'Comfortable! With Hildred!'

'Ay, with my little Hildred. She's a good girl, and she'd make a good wife. Besides, I've always said as how it's lonesome without a woman about the house.'

I tried to speak quietly. 'Were you talking about me when I came home?'

The pipe was alight now. He never could be got to talk when he was smoking. He just answered 'Yes,' and no more.

'You didn't tell her all I once told you?'

'Why not? I've a mind to bring you and her together.'

'Father,' I said, 'you have forgotten Cuthbert and my promise.'

He made no reply for a few minutes, and then, as, he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, he said, 'Cuthbert's dead.'

I leant my head down upon my arm, without the heart to-night to go over the old ground.

'Well!' said my father at last, when the pipe was out and the fire had almost smouldered away.

I shook my head. 'Cuthbert trusted me, and after all he may be living yet.'

'Not he.' He took his stick, and as he got up slowly from his arm-chair to go to bed, he added, 'You should think a bit of Hildred, too, Willie.'

'Of Hildred!'

'She gave Cuthbert up for dead long ago, and she sees you mostly every day.'

With that he went upstairs, leaning on my shoulder, and would not say another word except 'Good night.'

Good night! as if I could sleep with all this in my mind. Then Hildred knew now how I loved her, not as Cuthbert's brother, not as her old playfellow, but with a love as strong, as deep, longer far than his had been.

And she? Until now, whenever I believed, as sometimes I did, that Cuthbert was dead, my only thought had been that at some time in the years to come, when we knew all for certain, I might comfort her—that she might get to care for me, not as she had cared for her first love, but gradually a little, because I loved her so much, and so that she might grow at last to be content.

And now to be told, as my father had told me to-night, that I ought to think of Hildred's happiness. Was it possible that her happiness could depend the least on me? Could it be that her hope of seeing Cuthbert again was gone, and that her love had faded with her hope? She was so young—scarcely eighteen—when he left her. Her gentle nature was not made to stand alone. It might be that in its loneliness her heart had turned, without her knowing it, to the guardian who strove so hard to hide his love for her.

The rain was still pattering against the window, and the wind blew in gusts through the ruins, but I took no heed of the storm. I was happy. I think that hour, sitting alone in the chimney-corner, while the last sparks were dying out of the peat fire, was the happiest of all my life. For I only thought of Hildred, of how perhaps some day she would come and turn all my life into brightness. I had never dreamed, since Cuthbert went away, that she could ever care for me, and now what a dream it was! I remember it because it never came to me again, because I woke suddenly and the dream was gone. I do not know where it took me, or how long it lasted, but in it Hildred was my own. We were together. Then suddenly it seemed as if Cuthbert stood before me, and I could not meet his eyes, full of a grave reproach as he looked from me to Hildred.

My promise! I got up and paced the room with rapid steps—that cruel promise. Was I never to be free from it? All my life was it to drag me back from happiness and bind me fast in misery? If it was broken, what worse could come of it than this? It would not haunt me any longer then. No one would reproach me—no one would suffer by it. At all events I must take my chance of that. A broken promise! Why, it was not fit to weigh for a moment against the happiness of two whole lives. I should forget it, I must, surely in a little while; if not, who cared?

A whole storm of dark thoughts came sweeping over me; thoughts that I cannot recall even now without a shudder—anger against Cuthbert—bitter rebellion against my fate—a mocking contempt for myself that I had kept the promise sacred hitherto. What promise ever held true? I thought. Master Caleb's old puzzle came back to me,—how the cup of water that was given in Christ's name was in no wise to lose its reward; yet it had caused my mother's death, and following step by step, from that one act came all my troubles. That had proved false then, like all the rest, false as I was myself. Did it prove false? The very saying of the holy Name—the sacred words—the remembrance of my mother's trustful face—of Dorothy's quietly-spoken confidence—all this calmed me, and in the black darkness I fell suddenly on my knees, and said—

'Oh, Mother's God, who wert to her a sure refuge, come now and help me!'

As I prayed, a strange feeling came upon me that my prayer rose up even into the presence of a merciful listening God. The storm did not cease, the trouble was not rolled away, but there came a little rift into the dark clouds over me, a little speck of light shone through the blackness, as if a voice said, 'Oh, thou poor soul, be comforted; I will help thee!'

I think that was my first real prayer.

The next day was Sunday. The storm had quite passed over before the sun rose, and the grass sparkled with silver rain-drops. The river swept past beneath, with a fuller flow; the robins made the air bright with their merriment, rejoicing that, as they hopped from twig to twig, they shook down showers of lazy brilliant drops from off the boughs.

It seemed strange that such a storm could pass, and leave no deeper traces behind.

Over my life, too, a storm had come last night, but it was followed by no sunny morning. I was quieter, however, for my mind was made up. Weary with much thinking I put off until the afternoon that which I felt I ought to say to Hildred.

She, and Clifford's two boys, Robin and Walter, walked home together after church, and little Jock and Phillis were with me. As we passed under the yew tree, I asked Hildred to stay with me for a few minutes. The children went on, and Hildred and I were both silent, listening to their merry voices as they died away. I did not know what to say first.—At last I asked her abruptly, if she remembered how Cuthbert bade her good-bye here.

She said yes, she remembered it quite well.

I took her hand and said—I know my voice was trembling—'You have not forgotten him!'

'Oh no,' she answered; 'poor Cuthbert!'

'Sister!'—I had never called her by that name before—'when he went away he left you to me to take care of, and he asked me to talk about him to you, that you never might forget him. We have not spoken of him lately as often as we used, but it has not made any difference. If he were to come back he would find us just the same.'

She was silent.

'Eh, Hildred?'

'I shall always remember him,' she said in a low voice.

'And watch for his coming back?'

'Oh Willie, poor Cuthbert is dead.'

'Don't say that, Hildred—don't think it. I know that every one here believes it, but I don't. Some day we shall see him again.'

She sat down on the bank, with her hands, which she had clasped together, lying listlessly in her lap. I saw she did not share in my belief, and when I repeated 'He will come back to you,' she only shook her head.

'But at least'—I asked the question almost in a whisper—'at least you love him the same as ever?'

'It all seems so long ago,' she said, simply.

I turned away, angry with myself that the words gave me such a thrill of pleasure—almost angry with her for making me unfaithful. We were both false to him, for I had let her forget him.

'Oh Hildred,' I said, not speaking as I felt, 'and he loved you so dearly.'

My voice must have been very reproachful, though in truth the reproach was against myself, not against her, poor child. The tears came into her eyes, but she only repeated what she had said before: 'It does seem so very long ago.'

I did not know how to go on. For a time neither of us spoke. At last she said, 'Is it very wrong of me?'

'Wrong, Hildred! no,' I answered sadly. 'You were so young when he left you, that I suppose it was too hard for you to remember. Only, how could we meet him if he came back?'

She looked frightened. 'You don't really think he will.'

'God only can tell that—we must do everything as if we expected him. I know that if he were here it would be all right; you would only need to see him again. But Hildred'—I had come now to the most difficult thing I had to say,—'Hildred, my father told you, last night, something about me, that I never meant you to hear. It must be, for both of us, as if it had never been told.'

'Is it true?' she asked, without looking up.

'Yes.'

After a little while I said, 'Don't let it come between us. Let me be your brother still, and Cuthbert's.'

Hildred tried to say, 'Thank you.' Her tears were falling down slowly upon the clasped hands in her lap.

'Don't cry, dear, don't be sorry.'

'You have been so good to me,' she whispered.

They were very simple words. I don't quite know how it was, that I knew from them that she had grown to love me. I bent down, pressing my hands tightly together to force back the rising words.

Hildred that saw it was hard for me. She touched my arm with her hand, saying softly, 'Never mind me, Willie; I will try to be very good.' But her voice failed again, and she drew a long sobbing sigh. 'Oh, I am so tired—so tired of being unhappy.'

Harder still then—too hard. She was not made to bear trouble, but to be loved and taken care of. She scarcely seemed to understand now, why I could not comfort her as I always had hitherto.

The longing to take her home and try to make her happy, was stronger than I could bear. I could not be faithful to Cuthbert any longer. He was dead—again and again some voice whispered it in my ear. I believed it at last. He was dead, and he would never know. My first duty was to Hildred, for surely time and death had released me from my promise, and I knew now that she cared for me more than she had ever cared for him.

I knelt down beside her. I began to speak. What saved me? I scarcely know. Suddenly, far off in the evening stillness, some one began to whistle. My thoughts flew back to Cuthbert.

I went away from Hildred and leant over the wall, with my head resting on my arms. It was last night's battle over again, but harder, inasmuch as I knew Hildred's feeling now. I felt that upon my doing right depended more than the happiness of her life and of my own. I have heard that men have two angels, an evil and a good, who follow them through life. It seemed to me that they were both beside me then. But the good angel's shining eyes were growing sorrowful and dim, and the other (oh, why did it take a shape like Hildred's to tempt me) put out a hand to draw me nearer. Almost in despair I tried to pray. Those words—earliest learnt, and most familiar in all the world—the blessed words of Our Lord's Prayer, with its petition to be delivered from evil and temptation, came to my lips, and I repeated them.

Just then—it seems but a small thing—the whistle sounded again nearer at hand. Loud and clear came to my ears, Cuthbert's favourite old tune 'Over the hills and far away.' In a second it brought him before me, not as the distant soldier we had thought of as dead—not as Hildred's lover—but as my own boy-brother, the dear old Cuthbert of our happy days. All my love for him rushed back. I thought how unfaithful I had been to him, and my tears fell like rain down on the old wall.

So help had come. A second time God's mercy won the battle for me, even against myself.

After a time I went back to Hildred and took her hand. I cannot tell you what I said to her, but I wondered at myself for being able to speak so quietly. I told her how I had loved her all her life—not many words about that, for I had found that I could not trust myself, but I reminded her of the trust we held together, and that Cuthbert had left his heart fearlessly in her hands and mine. And I said, 'We must not fail him. To be true and faithful will be better for you, and happier too, dear, in the end.'

Hildred took her hand from mine, but she did not speak. Only, when I had said all I could, she whispered, 'Good-bye, Willie,' and turned to go away.

'Hildred, you understand me,' I could not help saying. She looked back, trying hard to smile, but her lips quivered sadly. She said, 'I am sure you know best, Willie.'

And then she left me.

In the years that I have led a wandering life, it has been my fate to hear many stories told. From wayfaring men, whose path has led them for a time to journey with me—from travelled folk—from old people, to whom (as after this you will know well) the memory of their youth and the sound of their own voices is ever dear—from young ones full of themselves and of the world, that is still new to them—from all these I have heard many a tale.

In the summer twilight, when the stars are brightening—on lonesome roads where there is little to speak of or to look for, except the mile-stones—in crowded towns, I have listened to story after story. Oftenest of all, beside some friendly fireside, on a winter's night such as this is. The best stories come out then, the longest and the strangest, sometimes the saddest. I have been reckoned a good listener in my day. It is not easy to be weary, hearing of human hopes and fears, of human hearts and troubles.

But what I wanted to say just now is this: I have seen that the best story-tellers, those that get the most rapt listeners, put a great deal of change into what they tell. They are fond of passing suddenly from one thing to another, a sad bit, then a bright bit—a sunny day and then a stormy night. They make you cry one minute, and the next you are laughing with them. And so they go on, black and white, light and shade, for ever. I hope you will forgive me that I do not know how to do this. It must be the right thing in a story, since it succeeds so well, but I cannot see that it is thus in nature. The sunshine and the shadow do not fall by rule, one following the other. They come and go at will. Sometimes a whole day's journey lies under an overcast sky, at others scarcely a cloud comes across the sun from its rising to its setting.

I would weave my story willingly after this chequered pattern if I could, but it is told in sober earnest, and I must just go on in my own fashion to the end, which is not so far off now.

My father did not know what to make of it when nothing came of what he had said to Hildred, and all went on seemingly much as usual.

According to his custom he asked no questions, only gave sundry vexed impatient looks at the door, and at Martha Clifford, when for several days she came in alone to wait on him. On her part she went about with pursed-up lips and a heavy step, setting things to rights with a sort of fling, meant to show that in some way she felt herself to be ill-used.

'Ah,' she began at last, seeing as she came in, that my father's eyes, as usual, looked beyond her in the hope of seeing Hildred following, 'I see well enough what you are after, neighbour Lisle. But I don't mean to put up with it any longer, that I don't.'

'What'll she be at now?' asked my father, looking up at me.

'Willie knows right well. I told him how it would be if he went on about Cuthbert Franklyn any longer, talking to Hildred and scaring her. There's the girl been crying all night: Phillis heard her. But there'll be an end to it all, for I am going to send her away to her aunt in Morechester. She'll be left in peace there, at all events.'

Martha kept her word. Prayers and promises availed nothing. She sent Hildred to Morechester, to be shut up all through the bright summer in a hot town, in rooms above a shop. Her aunt, a good woman enough I believe, lived in one of those quaint old houses in the market-place, that had a carved wooden gallery running round it, and a high-pitched roof with a gilt weathercock at the top.

They told me Hildred was content to be there. On market days I used to see her standing in the old-fashioned bow-window, watching the busy scene round the Cross—watching perhaps, I thought, for me. It was the moment in each week I lived for. They would not let me go and see her.

She always had a bright colour, and a smile when I caught sight of her, but even from that distance I could see that she was growing thin.

They left her there for many months, poor child, till long after the summer days were gone. Late in autumn Matt Clifford's heart smote him at her wistful face, as he was bidding her good-bye one day, and he brought her home.

Martha talked and scolded, blamed Hildred for looking ill, Matt for giving in to her when it was not for her real good, and me, for meaning, as of course I did, to begin again doing all I could towards wearing Hildred into her grave.

Clifford—I had never liked him so well—came and spoke to me himself, in a manly, straightforward way, and with a fairness that gave double weight to all his words. Hildred had no one but him and his wife, belonging to her, he said. He stood in her father's place, and wished to do his duty by her the same as if she was one of his own children. If he spoke now it was because he thought that it was right he should, not because he cared to meddle and make; 'as you know well enough, Will,' he added with a half smile, 'seeing how many years I have let things be and have said nothing either way.' 'He was sure,' he went on, 'that I had meant to do rightly by Hildred and Cuthbert both. As far as he could see, I could have done nothing but wait to see if Cuthbert would come home. When a man gave his word, why, he must stick to it. But there was an end to everything: the living ought not to suffer for the dead. To his mind it was time now to think a little more of Hildred. 'For betwixt you both,' said Clifford, looking up again with his grave smile, 'she is getting wasted to a shadow. What with Cuthbert's going away, and never sending a word home, and with your not letting her believe—as they tell me—that Cuthbert is dead and gone, what with all this, there'll be naught left of her soon. I tell you where it is, Will: I want to have her forget; if he's dead, fretting won't bring him back; if so be as he's alive, you'll never make me think he couldn't have sent so much as a line home to his sweetheart in these many years. I don't want to think so badly of him,' said Clifford 'as that he's living still.'

'Did you never think he might have been made prisoner?' I asked.

'I never think anything, but that he was killed, as David Moore told us. Hearing that, you are set free concerning any word you passed to him. That being so, I ask you now what you are going to do.'

I was silent.

'I should have no call to speak,' Clifford went on frankly, 'no call whatsoever, if Hildred had not been told by your father that you had been partial to her yourself, as long ago as before Cuthbert went. Maybe it was no business of his to tell—that I must leave—but as she knows it, for my wife had it from your father himself (Hildred never spoke a word), how can we look for her to settle down, seeing you every day?'

'What is it you would have me do?' I asked.

'I don't want you to marry the girl, mind,' said her brother, with a sort of pride for her in his voice. 'I don't want her to marry anybody, God bless her, unless she likes. As long as I am spared she has a home with me, and welcome. But I should wish to say to her—if so it is to be—that she needn't think any more of either you or him. She's but young yet, and my hope is that she'll turn her mind to some one else, after a bit. Still, I seem to feel vexed for you, Will. You are very fond of her, and I think, though she doesn't say a word, that she's very fond of you. It seems as though it were a pity to waste your two lives just for what I call an idea.'

'Will you give me a little time to think it over?' I asked, more perplexed than I had ever been before.

'To be sure,' he said heartily. 'I don't require you to do aught in haste. But consider that here's Christmas a-coming round again, and it'll be two years come Christmas Day since we heard for certain that Cuthbert was dead. It don't seem likely,' and Matt grew quite warm, 'it don't seem natural that he'd never have sent home a line—being in life—just to say "Don't mourn along o' me, dear friends, for I'm above ground yet." That's how I look at it.'

It is no good telling you all I thought. There has been too much about my thoughts already. I had striven so long to keep the balance even; it needed but a feather-weight to make it tremble now. Clifford's reasoning—Hildred's forced smiles—the thought that it was possible, after all that had come and gone, that she could ever turn her mind to some one else, some happy man who would be free to woo her, and would win her heart at last—these were not feather-weights. The length of time did make some difference too. Cuthbert himself would surely say that I had waited long enough honestly to fulfil his trust. I pondered over my answer to Matt's question for a whole month. At the end the balance was not even any longer.

There was one chance left of my getting good advice, for Master Caleb Morton was coming to spend the Christmas holidays at Furzy Nook. All my hopes were fixed on asking his counsel. We had not met since the beginning of all my troubles, more than four years ago.

Well, he came, and what was more, his wife and Mrs. Janet came with him. Such a welcome as they got from all Wyncliffe! It was a long while before I could get a quiet time to tell my story.

'There are no two ways about it,' said Mrs. Janet. She was the first to break a long silence, after all was told. She stood, knitting-needles in hand, working vigorously while she talked. 'There are no two ways about it. It is Willie's duty to marry Hildred Clifford. The thing is beyond a doubt. Young Franklyn, we are positively told, is long since dead. Therefore Willie is at liberty, and I say, bound, to marry the girl he loves, and who loves him. That's clear enough.'

'You think so, Janet?' said her brother thoughtfully.

'To be sure I do. The thing is as plain as a pike-staff.'

'I wish I could be as sure of it as you are.'

'Why, it's common sense. Willie will see it himself, and make up his mind, now that it is put before him properly—that is, if he is as sensible as he ought to be after the learning he got from you.'

'But I haven't made up my own mind,' said my dear old master.

'Brother, I am surprised at you. What would you have? You can't keep faith with a dead man, and I'm sure he wouldn't wish it himself. Cuthbert Franklyn was an open-hearted generous lad, when I remember him, and would have been the last to stand in the way of Willie's welfare. No, Willie's present duty is to make little Hildred Clifford happy, not to keep a fanciful promise that had much better never have been made at all.'

'I protest I think Janet is right,' said Master Caleb. 'I do indeed. The more I think of it the more sensible it seems.'

They went on strengthening each other in the opinion they had formed, while I listened with a beating heart, hearing Mrs. Janet assert, and my master agree with her, that it was my bounden duty to set aside the past. The turning of the tide had come at length.

I looked towards Dorothy, sitting somewhat apart beside the fire. She had not spoken, but once or twice had raised her eyes quickly from her work. Latterly she had laid it down on her lap, as if to listen more carefully, and was looking thoughtfully from one to the other as they spoke. Master Caleb followed the direction of my eyes.

'Do you want to know what she thinks?' he said, brightening up.

'If she would be so kind.'

'Dorothy,' he called. She came nearer and laid her hand on his shoulder. 'Willie wants your advice, and your help Dorothy.'

She hesitated a little, and looked at Mrs. Janet, who nodded to her, and said—

'Well, speak up child!'

'But Janet must know so much better than I do,' Dorothy began.

'Bless me!' Mrs. Janet broke in. 'Why, you are not going to say Dorothy, child, that you don't think of it as I do.'

'I thought,' Dorothy began again, and then stopped.

'There can be no two ways about it,' said Mrs. Janet, knitting faster.

'Go on, Dorothy,' said her husband watching her.

'I don't like seeming to set myself up against Janet,' she said, with her frank smile.

'Is that all?' Mrs. Janet patted her shoulder. 'Always know your mind, my dear, and speak it. I am going into the window to turn the heel of my stocking, and I shan't hear you. So say your say, child, and don't think of me—not that there can be two ways about it, all the same, you know.'

Dorothy turned round to me quickly. 'You want to know what I think?'

I said if she pleased I did indeed.

'Then, Willie, remember Cuthbert's trust in you, remember your promise, and help Hildred to keep hers.'

There was a short silence.

'You know there is every reason to believe Cuthbert Franklyn to be dead,' said Master Caleb, in a low voice.

'I know it; we cannot tell. It may be so—God alone knows. That question is in His hands not ours. But is Willie set free from the solemn word he gave? Can he marry Hildred now, and yet feel that he is faithful to the trust he took upon him, and true to the friend who left all he cared for, without a fear, in his keeping? Willie,' she went on, 'it is very hard for you, a long hard trial and a rough path may lie before you. It may be also that in this world you will never see that you were right. Perhaps at the close of your life you will say, "Well, all these years I might have been happy, and only for a doubt I have been lonely all my life." But I think even then you will not grudge the long struggle or the lonely years, and that you will draw near to your end more peacefully, for having tried to do your duty to the uttermost and to be "faithful unto death."'

I bent my head down lower and lower as she spoke. I was ashamed to raise it up. Her words had swept away the mists that had seemed to be rising round me and confusing me. The right was growing clear once more. The bright haze that had dazzled my weak eyes was passing away, and my duty stood stern and plain again before me.

I could not speak, but stood before her with my eyes bent on the ground.

'It was for Hildred's sake he doubted,' said my kind master, almost pleadingly.

'I know it,' she answered very softly. 'I know it was; but Hildred will be glad too, some day, that Willie has guarded her even against herself. He must find strength for her also. It seems to me that there could be for them no true content or rest, for the shadow of a trust betrayed and of a broken word would stand between them, and day by day the cloud of a fear they would not dare to speak of would darken over their lives.'

There was silence all through the room. No one answered. My master still sat half-turned and looking up at her. Mrs. Janet had left the window and was facing us. Her hands were held in the attitude of knitting, but the needles did not move, nor did she try to speak. I saw them all without knowing that I looked. At last Mistress Dorothy spoke again.

'Willie,' she said—the colour had flushed into her face, and its earnestness made her beautiful to look at—'Willie, not to every one is granted the opportunity of a great self-sacrifice. If God has willed that your path should be very difficult, do not be afraid to walk in it, for He will surely help you. Do not think so much of what you may do, as of what you can do—of what you can give up at His call. Choose the highest, for it will lead you nearer to Him. I am a weak woman. I know I should not be strong enough to walk in your hard path; but Willie'—she came near to me and took my hand,—'hitherto you have been so noble and so true. Brave heart, be faithful to the end.'

The kind words, so unlooked for, so undeserved, came too suddenly upon me. I had so nearly failed, and she said this. I kissed her hand—

When I looked up again, the tears were raining down her face, Master Caleb's eyes were shaded by his hand, and Mrs. Janet was in the window, standing with her back to us.

They say that to every cloud there is a silver lining. I was very sure that there were clouds on my horizon, but not quite so certain about the silver lining. If there was one at all, it must have been Jock Clifford.

For when you are in trouble there is a great deal of comfort to be got out of a child's affection.

In those days, after Matt Clifford had received my answer to his question in cold silence—when Martha would not let Hildred go near our house, and had forbidden her, as nearly as she could, to speak to me—when my father never opened his lips but to complain of me, I fell back with a singular feeling of refreshment and consolation, on my one staunch friend Jock.

He had been my shadow ever since, some nine or ten years ago, he began to stand alone on his sturdy little legs. Robin and Walter, his twin elder brothers, had no time to notice him. They were absorbed in a never-ending struggle, which of them should have the upper hand—a struggle that had begun as long ago as when, two red-faced babies, they lay heads and tails in the same cradle. It never seemed likely to be settled in their life-time, and it made them very quarrelsome, and quite inseparable.

So Jock, left to himself, bestowed all his company upon me. When one is in disgrace with well nigh all the world—and very few people made up 'all the world' to me,—it is at all events something to have a friend left, in whose eyes the idea of your doing anything wrong is a matter of simple impossibility—it is something, even though the friend be only eleven years old.

Jock was no half-hearted champion. He had found that he could make his mother pinch up her lips and raise her eyebrows, merely by praising me. So he talked of me incessantly, partly for love of me, and partly to use this his newly-gotten power. He was somewhat pleased too, only half offended, at Aunt Hildred frequently giving him kisses and lumps of barley sugar, behind the door.

Knowing that I was not very welcome to any one else, I fell, in my down-heartedness, rather an easy prey to Jock's overflowing life and glee, and he led me hither and thither, that spring, pretty nearly as he would. Neither work nor play came amiss to him. Ratting, rook-shooting and rabbit-snaring Jock's soul delighted in—most of all, perhaps, helping me to fish the trout stream that ran under the Castle walls.

No wonder he liked it. My own troubles seemed to fade away, as I laid the line lightly across the stream. Ah, those spring days, when the 'March brown' was on the water, how fair they were! A bluff wind came singing up the valley, crisping the clear brown water and crowning each little wave with silver ripples; a soft pearly sky, with now and then a dash of pale spring sunshine that lighted up woods and stream, and showed how the red buds were bursting into leaf, and a tender shining green, was beginning to clothe the alder trees.

My eyes, and Jock's, were fastened on to the water. I felt, rather than saw, that spring's soft fingers were at work along the banks; that a tuft of starry primroses had been nestled into the mossy root of an old willow, and a yellow butterfly, the first of the year, hung fluttering over them. Farther on a whole bed of violets, purple and white, glittered, fragrance-breathing, on the bank. The wind swept through the boughs merrily, trying in play to tear off the new leaves; but the stout little things held fast and laughed back, as they were swayed up and down. The whole bright summer was theirs to flutter through, before the wind could claim them as his own; and the birds and the wind and the sunshine spoke with their hundred tongues, and said, 'Ah, poor mortals! you may fret, and dispute, and sorrow as you will; you cannot keep back the summer. It is coming. It is coming.'

One day that spring I was bidden to a wedding at the Ferry-house; and I went, rejoicing heartily for both bride and bridegroom's sake. If ever I saw a face that beamed with contentment it was the bridegroom's.

Patience—his best helper—had won the day for him, and Elfrida wedded her faithful suitor at last.

For David Moore had come home for good, cured of his love of wandering and fighting, and well pleased to settle down for the rest of his days at the ferry.

The old people Elfrida had worked for so long wanted her no more. Davy—well, if it be true that clouds have silver linings it is not less so that each rose has its thorn. I thought of that on the wedding day, when the moment came for Elfrida to part with Davy. She was as quiet as usual until then, waiting upon everybody, and looking as if nothing had happened. But when the horse with the pillion on it, stood ready to carry her 'home,' Elfrida's heart gave way. She knelt on the ground, hugging Davy to her, kissing his curls, his frock, his little restless hands. Her husband stood waiting for her, compassionate and a little impatient. Davy himself had one arm round her neck, but his eyes were wandering to the horse, and he was eager to see Elfrida ride away. 'Oh Baby,' she sobbed, going back in her distress to the first name she had loved him by; 'Won't Baby kiss poor Frida?'

Davy looked at her, wondering. He had never seen her cry before. He put the other arm round her neck and kissed her gravely on each cheek. Immediately afterwards he gave her up as a bad job, being quite unable to fathom such a depth of grief as two kisses from him were not sufficient to cure.

That would be the way with him all his days. He was made, in his careless beauty, to win hearts without trying, to be loved and worshipped and wept over. There would always be plenty of Elfridas thankful to work for him in the shadow, while he walked through life in the sunshine.

But now her willing slavery was ending. The last words were spoken. The old shoe was thrown after her for luck. The setting sun was turning the river—her old comrade—into a sheet of gold.

Elfrida rode away up into the hills behind her goodman, and the ferry-boat knew her no more.

'Life,' said Martha Clifford musingly, 'is a muddle. Births and deaths—comings and goings—weddings and funerals—the young marry and the old die; that's the way of the world.'

She was standing by my father's bedside as she reflected thus. Elfrida's was the wedding that was just past; my father's the death that it seemed would follow hard upon it.

He had been failing all the winter; but now we counted his remaining life by days, nay, it might be, by hours. Martha had softened towards me since he was 'taken,' as she called it, 'for death.' Both she and Hildred helped to tend him.

And it came about that, before my father died, even the cause of difference that had been between us was taken away.

It was but natural that they should blame me for still clinging to such a mere shadow as the hope that Cuthbert might be alive. But I thought that it must be God Himself who kept alight in my heart the little spark of faith that no one shared, and that would not be extinguished. Now I know that it was so.

For I was right after all. At last—at last, he came. One evening, after Martha and Hildred had gone home and I was alone downstairs, I heard the latch move as if some one was trying to lift it with an unsteady hand. Then the door opened, and the sunshine and the shadow fell across the floor—a man's shadow. I looked round carelessly, for I was not thinking of him then. Other cares—my father's illness and Hildred's presence, had driven him lately out of my mind. He had not been so far from my thoughts for years as lately, when day by day he was coming nearer to me.

Now, as I was telling you, I saw a shadow cast from the doorway. I turned round. There, on the threshold stood a soldier in a worn greatcoat—a dark man, with the empty sleeve of his right arm fastened across his breast. As I got up, he took off his hat and spoke my name.

How did we meet? I cannot tell. What words does one use after such a parting? How can you greet one, come back, as it were, through the grave and gate of death? I only remember hearing myself say over and over again, 'Cuthbert, Cuthbert.'

'You thought that I was dead.' His voice deep and grave, was as the voice of a stranger.

'Never; I could not believe it; others might, I never did.'

'Faithful old Willie.' He smiled, and then it was Cuthbert again.

I wanted to push him down into the arm-chair in the chimney-corner, and tried to welcome him in such broken words as I could find.

Was it very strange that, in the quick rush of joy at seeing his face once more, I forgot Hildred for a moment—forgot all but that my brother had come home? His next words brought all back. He put his hand on my shoulder and said 'Hildred?' and I felt his grasp tighten as if he tried to steady himself.

'She is at home, and well.'

He drew a long breath without speaking, and my words too were checked.

'I am going to her,' he said next.

'Oh Cuthbert, stop—remember. She knows nothing, she has long given you up. It will kill her if you come upon her suddenly.'

Cuthbert pushed away my hand with a smile. 'Joy does not kill,' he said.

Joy! I do not know which I thought of at that moment, joy or sorrow, Cuthbert or Hildred, the sudden shock of their meeting to her, or the blow it might bring to him.

'Let me go to her first,' I said eagerly: 'let me tell her.' I do not know what I meant to do. I think I had some wild idea of imploring her to love him.

Cuthbert looked surprised. 'No, no,' he said, 'I want to see her first glad look. Don't keep me.'

I suppose in my perturbation I was going to follow him, for he stopped and said, 'Let me go alone, Will. Dear old fellow, I don't want even you when I first see my Hildred.'

I let him go—let him go to her whom he called his own. He was right—his, not mine. And I had been so madly glad to see him!

Cuthbert was not gone for very long. He came in slowly, came up to me, and—he had not done it since we were little boys together—bent down and kissed me. My heart was beating hard and fast.

'You have seen her?'

'Yes'—he sank down wearily into a chair—'I have seen her.'

'Well?'

'Well'—he looked up and smiled rather sadly—'Well, the joy did not kill her, you see.'

'She was glad?'

'I hope so. I hope so indeed.'

'What then, Cuthbert? Did she know you?'

He leant down his head on the table, and suddenly burst into tears. My whole heart went back to him.

'Cuthbert—what is it?'

He spoke almost directly. 'I am a worn-out old soldier. I have lost my arm. I am good for nothing now, and I think she was disappointed in me.'

Oh Cuthbert, whom in my heart I had almost hated just now—true soldier, faithful heart—to see his brave head bent low. He should be happy whatever became of me.

I told him to be comforted, that all would be well, and by-and-by he began to believe what he so much wished. 'I have looked forward to this for so long,' he said. 'I have had so much hardship and suffering. For two years we were in an Indian prison, and I should not have cared to live, only for the thought that Hildred would grieve for me. And now to see her so changed, so white and strange.'

'You frightened her, poor child. Remember that she had long given up the hope of seeing you again.'

'You had not.'

'Ah, Cuthbert, that was so different.'

He gave a long sigh. 'Perhaps I had better not have come back at all. I had better not have lived.'

'But you must live now, for your little Hildred's sake.' I could say it with no sharp pang at my heart. A great peacefulness came over me, like the evening air after a storm. That night, as I sat up alone beside my father's bed, I prayed for Cuthbert and Hildred. For myself I only needed to thank God for His mercy to me.

It was scarcely light the next morning when Jock's low whistle under the window called me out to him. Hildred had sent him, he said, to tell me to go and speak to her. She was in the chapel, waiting for me.

Day had not long broken outside. Inside the ruined aisle of the chapel was full of shadows still, but through the great window facing the east we could see the dawn brighten and grow strong. Hildred had chosen a strange place of meeting. Here all told how earthly joy and earthly sorrow vanish and pass away. Beneath our feet, as we trod the broken pavement, were the graves of men whose hopes and fears had long been over; their very names were worn away by the footsteps of later generations. Deep and unbroken seemed the repose of the happy dead. What matter now to them how heavy the cross had been, so that they had won the crown? What matter how hard and long the battle had been once, so that they had been faithful unto death? A thrill of awe crossed me as I looked up the solemn aisle in the grey morning light. There too the sculptured angel that in my childhood I used to call my mother, looked down gravely with outstretched wings, as if she were watching over her son in this the crisis of his life.

Hildred was there, leaning against an old carved tomb. She was quite white, and her eyes had a scared and weary look as she raised them to me.

I am afraid that I spoke the more sternly, for the love I felt for her, the great longing I had to take her to my heart and comfort her.

'Well, Hildred,' I said, gravely, 'you sent for me.'

'I was so frightened,' she whispered. 'Oh Willie, tell me what I ought to do.'

'Your duty.'

Just as she used to do when she was a child, she covered her face and shrank down on to the ground.

'But it is so hard to do one's duty—so hard.'

'Oh child,' I answered, from my heart, 'it is hard, but God is good.'

Then I tried to plead Cuthbert's cause, and to tell her how the remembrance of her had been the one thing he clung to through his dark days of imprisonment and pain—the one thing, failing which he would have been glad, for very weariness, to lie down and die.

'If we have failed him—you and I—in these years that he has trusted us—and in my heart I know that I have failed in deed, if not in will—oh Hildred, it is not too late yet. We have time, and Cuthbert trusts us still.'

'You never think of anyone but Cuthbert,' said Hildred, impatiently, unknowing how cruel her words sounded.

'I think of you too, Hildred,' I answered, very sadly. 'I am very sorry for you both.'

'Would Cuthbert mind so very much,' asked Hildred, 'if he knew how long it was before we gave him up?'

'You will never tell him you forgot him,' I said, in terror.

She was silent.

'God help him, then. God help us all.'

Neither of us spoke for many minutes—slow minutes that were laden with heavy thoughts.

At last Hildred looked up to me with a smile that was wonderfully sweet and sad.

'Willie,' she said, 'I wish I could be as strong as you are.'

'You can, Hildred. Oh dear Hildred, you will be if you try.'

'Oh, I am going to try, of course,' she answered, wearily.

Cuthbert was standing before the door when I went home. We shook hands and went into the house together, but I had a strange feeling all the time, that I did not know what to say to him. Last night I fancied that my battle was all over, and the victory mine once and for ever. This morning it all began over again, and every word that Cuthbert spoke ruffled me. I felt angry with him for speaking cheerily, and gave all my attention to lighting the fire. He stood leaning his arm on the chimney-piece, and watching me.

'It seems odd to see you doing all the woman's work,' he said.

I answered shortly that there was no one else to do it.

'So dear old Granny is gone?'

'Yes, long ago.'

'How long?'

'Oh, two years and more.'

'Dear, kind old Granny. She was very good to me.'

I said nothing.

'Do you think your father is getting better?' he asked presently.

'No, I don't. He never will be better.'

Cuthbert looked down at me in his old kind way.

'Poor old Will, you have had troubles even here at home.'

'Yes, one doesn't need to go to the wars for that,' I answered.

'And yet I fancied you all so happy here, except that I thought Hildred must fret about me at times. Did she, Will?'

'Of course. Everybody was uneasy about you.'

And then I was glad to get away to my father's room. But when I came down Cuthbert would talk of Hildred, and ask questions about her. He seemed to have forgotten the fears he had last night. She had been startled, he said, but it would be all right to-day. And by-and-by he went away to seek her.

The day passed slowly and heavily. My father lay with his eyes half closed, scarcely noticing anything. I did not let Cuthbert see him, for fear of disturbing him, but later in the day, when Hildred and Martha were with him, he heard the strange footstep on the stairs. Cuthbert's step now, soldierly and measured, was very unlike the light quick tread my father used to know. It was no remembrance that made him turn his head on the pillow to listen, and then say to Hildred, 'Who?'

I tried to turn his attention away, but the footstep crossed the room below, and my father repeated, 'Who is it?'

'Cuthbert Franklyn,' Hildred said, quietly.

'Cuthbert!' There was very little surprise in his voice as he repeated the name. 'Cuthbert! Bring him here.'

I went outside the room and called him. I was sorry my father should find out that Cuthbert was there, but I saw in a few minutes that it mattered very little. The small interests of Time, its lights and shadows, were growing faint and dim for the eyes on which Eternity was just about to dawn.

My father held out his hand feebly when Cuthbert stood beside his bed. After a minute he looked up at him again, and murmured a few words, too low for any of us to catch distinctly. I believe they were something about fishing, and that his thoughts were wandering back to when Cuthbert was a boy. He did not need an answer. In a few minutes he was lying quietly as before.

Cuthbert stood for a while at the foot of the bed and then went away.

It made me feel more than ever that I was alone. My father had cared so much about my marrying Hildred; and now Cuthbert's return, which put an end to that thought for ever, awoke no interest in him. He was neither surprised nor sorry that Cuthbert and Hildred should have been standing together beside his bed.

Hildred was very quiet. She waited on my father with careful tenderness, and avoided as much as she could speaking to me. When she had done everything for my father, she stood still for a long while looking down at him. Perhaps, like me, she half-envied him his peaceful rest.

Nearly everybody in the village came up in the course of the day to see Cuthbert. The news of his return had spread far and wide, and his old friends thronged to welcome him, hardly able to believe that he was really the Cuthbert Franklyn they had so long talked of as dead. Everybody wished me joy.

'I'm sure I'm as glad as though it had been a son of my own,' said good old Esther Reynolds. 'I knew how you'd feel, Willie, let alone Hildred. Just at this time too, it seems sent to cheer you up a bit, now your father lies so ill. I said so when I heard the news, and that I must make shift to get up to the Castle and tell Willie Lisle how I thought about him; for, as I said to my master, the two boys were wonderful fond of each other—more than most real brothers. Now there are my two lads, quarrelled at the fair last Michaelmas, and haven't so much as spoken one to the t'other since.'

Cuthbert looked at me and I at him, and we held out our hands to each other. Everybody was shaking hands and we were not noticed. As I felt his strong left-handed grasp, something that was like a cloud seemed to roll away from between us.

'It's all right now, old chap,' he said, low enough for no one but me to hear.

So it was 'all right' from that time forth between him and me. But he began by degrees to see that Hildred was changed, and that his fancy the night he had come home was no mistake.

He was very patient and gentle to her, even when she was the most changeable or cold. He never complained; only he often sat still without speaking, with a sad look on his face.

'I must give her time,' he said to me once or twice. 'It will come right by-and-by. I have grown strange to her. Will, I sometimes think this is a judgment on me for the selfish way I went and left her when I first enlisted.'

'You must wait,' I used to say.

'Oh yes, I will; I am trying to be very patient, and I believe that she will come back to me in time.'

I don't think he ever really doubted that. His trust in her, like his love for her, was perfect.

My father's state was reason enough for settling nothing. We all felt it to be a time of waiting. For myself, I looked forward very little. A merciful kind of lull and calmness had come across my life, as I watched over my father's last days.

He died as silently as he had lived. I had wished for some spoken word to tell me he was happy, and that the hand of the Good Shepherd was guiding him through the valley of the shadow of death. But it was not so to be. An upward look; a clasping of the hands; a deep 'Amen,' uttered at the end of the prayers the vicar offered by his bed; a smile when the most comforting of all names was spoken to him. Those were the outward signs he gave.

For the rest, who can tell what was passing in his mind during those silent nights and days?

The end came towards morning, after a night of storm and rain. The wind was shaking the lattice windows and moaning round the ruins. We were all gathered about his bed—Cuthbert and I, Matt Clifford and his wife, and Hildred. When, towards midnight, the strange change that even those who have seen little of death know instinctively, began to come across his face Cuthbert went to fetch them. Everyone was quite quiet except poor Hildred. She could not keep back her sobs, as she knelt with her face hidden on the side of the bed.

I saw Cuthbert move round, and without speaking put his hand on her bowed head.

All seemed unreal and far away to me, except my father's overshadowed face and deep-drawn breath. 'He does not know anything,' said Martha Clifford, watching him.

But as if he somehow felt the coming of the morning, he stirred and opened his eyes, and in a thick indistinct voice he asked the hour.

I bent over and told him.

The next moment he said, 'Is it day-break?'

No, it was still quite dark; but a new, bright unearthly smile came over his face. With a thrill of awe and wonder we looked to see it fade——

'It is over,' Martha Clifford said.

And the smile remained.

A few days more, and the slow tolling of the church bell called us to go down and lay our dead under the shadow of the grey belfry.

My father's burial was over, and we had come back to the empty house. All that afternoon I sat by the fire-place in his vacant chair, and tried to think of what I ought to do.

The house was quite silent, and the door, as usual in summer, stood half open.

Somehow I fell to thinking of my mother more than of my father. It was just on such a quiet afternoon as this that I came home years ago, after she was dead, and found Cuthbert near the well. I thought of the message Master Caleb brought me from her, bidding me be as a brother to Cuthbert, and I wondered whether she would still have sent it, if she could have known all that was to follow. What would she have had me do now? The way did not seem clear before me. All my kith and kin were gone. I had seen them carried one by one across the threshold, and had stood by while they were laid to rest in the churchyard down yonder. Mother first; then the kind old grandmother, and now my father. I was as much alone as Cuthbert was when he first came to us. The wheel of life had turned round since then, and left me poor.

Cuthbert stayed with me for some time, sitting in the chair opposite to mine, and trying every now and then, poor fellow, to find something cheering to say to me. But I did not care to talk, so at last he went to the door and let in more sunshine as he pushed it open; then he came back to me, and after putting his hand on my shoulder and saying something about going to look for Hildred he went away.

I was glad to be left alone, though Cuthbert was grave and sad enough, and almost as ready to sit silently thinking as I was. He and my father had never been much to each other. Yet it was the breaking of a long tie, and the losing of the last bit of the old life. Besides, he was unhappy about Hildred.

I suppose a long time passed while I still sat thinking, for the sun came round to the other window, and cast long level rays into the room.

Suddenly a great noise roused me—a loud crash and then a rumbling sound, as if loose stones were falling over one another. Once before I had heard something like it when a part of the Castle wall had fallen. I went out quickly now, towards the part of the ruin that the sound came from.

Hildred met me as I passed under the arch near the keep. She was as pale as death. She clutched my arm and tried to speak. I could barely hear what she said, for some horror seemed to be choking her, and she gasped for breath. She pulled me back in the direction from which she came.

'I have killed him. Come!'

'Hildred what is it? Where is Cuthbert?'

She pointed across the ruins. Still in the same hoarse whisper she said, 'The tower fell in; I took him there.'

It was true; part of the tower had fallen. It was the oldest bit of the ruin, and the walls were mouldering away. I had often warned Hildred that it was unsafe. Now I saw a great heap of massive fallen stones and masonry, and a huge gap in the wall. A bit of the winding stone stair was down. Far above our heads the broken steps began again. Merciful Heaven! was Cuthbert buried under all that?

'Can he be alive?' Hildred gasped, and ended with a long wild scream, as she saw the horror in my face.

'Hush, Hildred, I must get the tools; call Matt; send the boys for help.'

When I came back Matt Clifford was there. Hildred had flung herself down upon the fallen stones and was tearing at the rough masses with her bare hands.

Poor child! I must tell you now, what I heard afterwards, why she said that she had done it. I did not ask then, only worked for dear life, and spoke no words, except a few which I will tell you later.

Cuthbert had found her when he left me. She was thinking of my father, and her heart, she said, was full of longing to come and comfort me in my trouble. 'It seemed hardest of all not to be able to tell you how sorry I was. Your father was always so good to me.'

So when Cuthbert joined her she was cross with him, and reproached him for having left me alone at such a time. He was very gentle and patient, but she would not listen. They wandered on as they talked, and came to this tower. Hildred wanted to get away from him, and began to climb the winding stair, bidding him not follow her. Half way up there was a broken window, out of which we often used to jump as children, on to the wall beneath. She reached this in safety, but Cuthbert had come after her; turning round she saw the stair waver beneath his greater weight. The wall rocked to and fro—bent inwards—and then came the awful crash which I had heard, and Cuthbert was gone.

I knew it was useless, yet I could not help bending down and calling out his name. No answer. A dead silence there, but behind, the welcome sound of hurrying steps, as man after man came up to us, breathless, horror-stricken, eager to help.

We fell to work, working as men only can when life or death seems hanging on their hands. Scarcely a word was uttered. There was only the sound of the pickaxes driven deep down into the heaps of rubbish,—the grating noise of stones raised up and thrown aside—by-and-by the quickened breathing of those who would not stop to rest. On and on, with a grim energy, and agony of suspense, that seemed to double the power in those strong arms and quivering muscles. On and on, with wild words of voiceless prayer ringing in my ears, with thoughts that wandered strangely to my father's funeral, to the tolling of the church bell, to Hildred standing sobbing by the open grave.

She was close beside me. Her hands were torn and bleeding, cut by the sharp stones which she was trying madly to lift up and roll away. The gravel that the spades threw aside, fell all over her, but she did not know it. I lifted her up, for there was not room enough for all the workers, who could give stronger help than hers. She struggled to get away from me, telling me to let her go back and help.

'You cannot help us so,' I said. 'Hildred! poor child, kneel down and pray for us.'

'Oh, I cannot. I do not know how. I am too wicked. Tell me what to say.'

Somehow, the solemn words that we had heard that day, standing by my father's grave, came to my lips, and I repeated them.

'In the midst of life we are in death. Of whom may we seek for succour but of Thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?'

Hildred had fallen on her knees, repeating 'Oh, justly displeased, most justly.'

I was back at work. I heard Hildred say, 'Won't some one pray again?' and presently an old man, the parish clerk, standing near her, said in a broken voice, with many pauses, 'In all time of our tribulation, in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment——'

From us all—from poor Hildred—from the eager workers, and the watchers standing by, came as with one voice, the deep response, 'Good Lord, deliver us.'

The time was drawing near when we should know the worst. The great heap of fallen masonry was getting smaller every minute. Could Cuthbert have been saved alive? We came upon great stems of ivy crushed and broken in the ruin. The fresh leaves, unwithered yet, shone out strangely here and there.

Hildred had not moved. She was kneeling, almost lying on the ground. The setting sun was shining in our eyes, dazzling us as we worked, with what seemed to me—calm, pitiless curiosity.

A great stone, almost the last, was lifted on one side. From those in front there suddenly rose a sort of cheer, checked instantly, a smothered exclamation, and then an eager silence, as they bent over something on the ground.

I gave one look, went back to Hildred, and knelt down by her. I burst out crying like a child when I began to speak. I could not help it. Then I took her hand and told her, 'Hildred, dear heart, be comforted. There is hope.'

He was not crushed. God had guarded him. He had fallen in some manner sheltered from the great stones, by the wall and the remains of the staircase. He was half buried under the bits of broken wall, and he lay quite still and unconscious at our feet. But he might be living yet. We carried him out, and laid him down in the sunshine.

Was it life or death—that rigid figure that did not move, that ashen-grey face, with the thin stream of blood trickling from the temple?

Hildred was on the ground beside him, gazing into his face with straining eyes, that seemed as if they must call him back from death itself. She lifted up his arm and tried to put it round her. She called to him, first in a choked whisper, then louder, yet louder, as his silence struck the chill of terror more into her heart.

'Cuthbert, Cuthbert! Oh come back! Forgive me! Dear Cuthbert, speak to me!'

The men stood round watching her. I heard some of them crying, great rough fellows as they were. Hildred looked up at me with bright, widely-opened eyes—no tears in them. Then she spoke to him again, called on him to come back, and she would love him. He heard her. Some tone of hers must have reached him even then. He moved, drew a faint sigh. Oh the low cry she gave! It was not a word or a sob, but just the half-stifled first cry of a new-born hope.

And then Cuthbert opened his eyes, saw her leaning over him, and smiled. She did not speak, only bent down lower, until her face lay hidden by her hands upon his breast.

In a few minutes, very slowly and feebly he raised his hand and put it on her head.

Cuthbert was taken to Clifford's house, which was much nearer at hand than ours. For a few hours more we watched him anxiously. Life came back slowly, but at length the doctor turned away from the bed with a sigh of relief. 'He will do now,' he said cheerily. 'Only keep him quiet. Why, it would never have done to let him slip through our fingers in this sort of way, after his getting over his wounds and escaping out of that Indian prison, as they tell me he did.'

By the next day he could speak to us in a weak voice, and had revived enough to smile a little when Martha told him he had got no more than he deserved, for mooning about in places where Jock himself knew better than to venture.

Towards evening I left him comfortably asleep. Hildred followed me out of the porch, and closed the house door behind her. For a few minutes we did not speak, but stood looking at the setting sun, and thinking—at least I thought—with what different eyes we had seen it going down yesterday, not less peacefully than to-day.

Hildred spoke first, lifting her eyes to mine with a grave rested look that it was new to me to see upon her face.

'God has been merciful,' she said.

'Most merciful.'

'And now——'

My heart was beating fast and heavily. In her grief, in her great terror and her self-reproach, she had seemed to grow dearer to me than ever before; and now that the moment had come—I knew it had—when I must really give her up, I felt as if I could not part with her.

'And now, Willie, I must try to be good at last.' She stopped for a moment, and clasped her hands. 'In that most dreadful time last night, when you told me to pray—when you and the men were working, and I did not know whether or not I had killed him, I made a promise, a solemn promise before God. You know what it was.'

I nodded.

'God gave me back Cuthbert's life. I must try to make it a happy life. I must redeem my promise. Willie, you will help me?'

And so the battle—the hard struggle—was over for her. Well, it was far better so. She was not strong, my darling; she could not have borne a long battle such as a man must fight, so God led her by a short sharp road back to peace.

For a short time we stood together still. Then Hildred turned slowly. 'And now, Willie, just once before I go, I want you to say God bless you.'

As she stood before me looking up at me, I put my hand upon her head, and said, as steadily as I could, 'God bless my dear love for ever, and make her happy.'

The tears were streaming down her face, not bitter tears, but quietly sorrowful. And as I ended she clasped her dear arms for a moment lightly round my neck, and kissed me. That was our farewell. We said no more, and Hildred went away. I watched her until the door closed behind her. When she shut it, the Hildred I loved and who loved me, had passed away from my sight and from my life.

I do not mean that I did not see her, for she was often there when I went to Cuthbert, and after a few days she came with him to the Gatehouse.

Those days, the first of a good many that I had spent quite alone, gave me time to think over many things. My duty began to grow plain to me. Hildred had asked me to help her. I was growing to see more clearly how I could best do so.

Cuthbert got better very quickly. He too, I believe, was thinking a great deal just then of what his future life should be. Hitherto he had been too sad and anxious to make plans, but now that Hildred seemed to have come back to him, he began to wonder how they were to live. He told me so once, when I was sitting by his bed, saying that he would not let it trouble him just yet, he was too happy. Still, he could not help remembering that his pension was very small, and that he had not got two arms like other people. 'I wonder if I can earn enough for Hildred with one arm,' he said. 'Do advise me, Will.'

I asked him to let the future rest for a little longer, and he was content to do so, being weak still, as well as very happy.

In a few days he could walk about again, and one evening he and Hildred came across the ruins and sat down to rest on the old stone bench outside our house. I remember every little thing that happened on that evening, so like, and yet so unlike, any other that I have ever spent. I could almost repeat each word that was said, every-day and purposeless as some of them would have appeared to any one but me.

I felt as if they must guess my secret, when I asked Cuthbert to come home to-morrow and to look after the house and the Castle gate, while I was away.

'Going away!' said Hildred, looking up.

I was obliged to go to Morechester, I told them, to see the man of business who managed everything about the Castle. He must be told of my father's death, and would settle who was to come after him. Long ago it had been promised that I should do so.

'So it's sure to be all right,' said Cuthbert.

'Oh yes, all right.'

Cuthbert was the one of us who talked the most. He went on to say how like old times it was, for us three to be there together. Neither Hildred nor I made much answer, and presently, following the train of his own thoughts, he began to tell us about his soldier life, his last battle, the dreary years of his imprisonment, and then his escape.

I was glad, and so I think was Hildred, to sit silent and hear him talk. I can see her now, listening quietly and gravely, with her hands folded on her lap. I like to remember her in my mother's place. Often since, I have fancied her sitting there.

The twilight drew on. Now and then a bee, heavily laden, went droning past. The sound of the river rippling over the stones below came to us more clearly. One star shone out. We had been sitting without talking for some time, and Hildred said they must go home.

'I shall be gone before you are awake in the morning,' I said. 'I will leave the key for you.'

They bade me good-night, and went away together.

Cuthbert turned, I have often wondered why, after he had gone a few steps, and came back to wring my hand again. 'Good-night, Will,' he repeated. 'I'll take good care of the old place while you're away. Good speed to you on your journey.'

The words sounded to me like a farewell. 'Will you promise to stay until I come back?' I said, still holding his hand. And he answered, laughing, 'Of course.'

I watched them crossing the Castle Court. Cuthbert was leaning on Hildred. She walked slowly and carefully. Once or twice he bent his head down to talk to her, and I saw her look up to answer him. As they went on she put her hand up to his, which was on her shoulder, as if she told him to lean on her more heavily.

So I lost sight of them in the twilight. God bless them both! It was many years before I saw either of them again.

Later at night, when the moon was up, I went all over the ruins. The grey towers were whitened by the moon-beams, and draped in black ivy, with here and there a silver leaf that the light had fallen upon. From the deep shadow cast by the walls and towers, I passed into the full stream of colourless radiance, then back again into darkness.

For many minutes I stood under Hildred's window, against the diamond-shaped panes of which the moon was glittering. 'Sleep peacefully dear love,' I said to her in my heart. 'Wake happily. God give you bright dreams and gladsome days for ever.'

Lastly, I came to the well, and leaning over the edge looked down wearily. There was the reflection of one sparkling star down there, that lay quivering on the black water. I cannot tell how long I stayed thus; for then I began to lose myself.

The rest of that night, the morrow, and many of the days that followed, are almost a blank in my memory—a blank from which some few pictures stand out more or less distinctly.

I see myself standing before sunrise on the bridge, and turning to take a long last look at the old home. A dewy misty morning had come after the moonlight night. By-and-by it would brighten into a cloudless summer's day; but now the mist hung in heavy folds over the Castle. For an instant the morning breeze might blow it aside and show a glimpse of ruined wall and towered gateway, but the next the white curtain floated back again, and all was hidden.

In the strange confusion that was coming over my thoughts it seemed to me as if those fleecy wreaths of mist were rolling over my whole life, and covering up the past from me for ever.

Next I see Morechester, with burning sunlight blazing on the market-place, and church bells sending abroad their golden waves of sound. Suddenly the glare is quenched as I pass under the arched doorway into the Minster. The air strikes chill, there is a great dimness and silence. From the other end of the nave come echoes as of closing gates and distant footsteps, and presently voices are singing. There is an iron gate which I try to open, but it is locked, and red light shines through a curtain. I am shut out. Within there is peace, and prayer, and sweet music rising up to heaven. Outside I kneel alone by the closed gate. Everything is unreal. I feel as though it were the gate of Paradise that is shut against me. But I can catch that in there they are asking the good Lord to comfort and help the weak-hearted, and the sweet pitying voices that sound as if angels were singing, echo the prayer. They, too, are pleading for me, and I am comforted. And the prayers and the music go their way, and seem to carry me up with them towards heaven.

Again I am in a small dark room, and a grave man is listening while I tell a story. He answers me, and I know that I have won my suit. Cuthbert is to have the Gatehouse instead of me. It is promised to him, and a great load is taken off my mind. Now Cuthbert need fear no future for Hildred or himself. There was but that one way to help them both.

It only remained to send the letter I had already written back to Cuthbert.

It was a good thing that it had been written slowly and carefully beforehand, for now I could not hold my thoughts together, or keep them on one thing for many minutes. In the letter I had told Cuthbert the truth, though not the whole truth. I said that I had grown restless of late, and Wyncliffe had become wearisome to me, so I had gone forth into the world to seek my fortune; and that, if I left them all without saying good-bye they must forgive me—leave-takings were but dreary things; and I knew well how in their kindness they would try to keep me back if they heard that I was going. The rest was easy to say. Cuthbert must know how much rather I would think of him in the old place than of a stranger. He would believe that he was doing me a kindness in filling the post I had given up, so that the life-long tie that bound me to Wyncliffe would be still unbroken, and some one would live in the Gatehouse who loved it as much as I always should, though I was leaving it. I hoped that he and Hildred would be happy there, as we had been long ago.

Then I remember, but very dimly and confusedly, long days of travel, one after the other, during which the only thing I cared for was to get on quickly, farther yet farther, so as to put the greatest distance between myself and all the places I had ever seen.