THE LAUREL BUSH

An Old-Fashioned Love Story

by

DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK

Author of _John Halifax, Gentleman_, &c. , &c. , &c. 

Chapter 1. 

It was a very ugly bush indeed; that is, so far as any thing in naturecan be really ugly. It was lopsided--having on the one hand a stuntedstump or two, while on the other a huge heavy branch swept down to thegravel-walk. It had a crooked gnarled trunk or stem, hollow enough toentice any weak-minded bird to build a nest there--only it was so nearto the ground, and also to the garden gate. Besides, the owners ofthe garden, evidently of practical mind, had made use of it to placebetween a fork in its branches a sort of letter-box--not the governmentregulation one, for twenty years ago this had not been thought of; but arough receptacle, where, the house being a good way off, letters might bedeposited, instead of; as hitherto, in a hole in the trunk--near the footof the tree, and under shelter of its mass of evergreen leaves. 

This letter-box; made by the boys of the family at the instigation andwith the assistance of their tutor, had proved so attractive to someexceedingly incautious sparrow that during the intervals of the post shehad begun a nest there, which was found by the boys. Exceedingly wildboys they were, and a great trouble to their old grandmother, with whomthey were staying the summer, and their young governess--"Misfortune, "as they called her, her real name being Miss Williams--Fortune Williams. The nickname was a little too near the truth, as a keener observer thanmischievous boys would have read in her quiet, sometimes sad, face; andit had been stopped rather severely by the tutor of the elder boys, ayoung man whom the grandmother had been forced to get, to "keep them inorder!" He was a Mr. Robert Roy, once a student, now a teacher of the"humanities, " from the neighboring town--I beg its pardon--city; and alovely old city it is!--of St. Andrews. Thence he was in the habit ofcoming to them three and often four days in the week, teaching ofmornings and walking of afternoons. They had expected him thisafternoon, but their grandmother had carried them off on some pleasureexcursion; and being a lady of inexact habits--one, too, to whom tutorswere tutors and nothing more--she had merely said to Miss Williams, asthe carriage drove away, "When Mr. Roy comes, tell him he is not wantedtill tomorrow. "

And so Miss Williams had waited at the gate, not wishing him to have theadditional trouble of walking up to the house, for she knew every minuteof his time was precious. The poor and the hard-working can understandand sympathize with one another. Only a tutor and only a governess: Mrs. Dalziel drove away and never thought of them again. They were meremachines--servants to whom she paid their wages, and so that they didsufficient service to deserve these wages, she never interfered withthem, nor, indeed, wasted a moment's consideration upon them or theirconcerns. 

Consequently they were in the somewhat rare and peculiar position ofa young man and young woman (perhaps Mrs. Dalziel would have takenexception to the words "young lady and young gentleman") thrown togetherday after day, week after week--nay, it had now become month aftermonth--to all intents and purposes quite alone, except for the children. They taught together, there being but one school-room; walked outtogether, for the two younger boys refused to be separated from theirolder brothers; and, in short, spent two-thirds of their existencetogether, without let or hindrance, comment or observation, from anymortal soul. 

I do not wish to make any mystery in this story. A young woman oftwenty-five and a young man of thirty, both perfectly alone in theworld--orphans, without brother or sister--having to earn their ownbread, and earn it hardly, and being placed in circumstances where theyhad every opportunity of intimate friendship, sympathy, whatever you liketo call it: who could doubt what would happen? The more so, as there wasno one to suggest that it might happen; no one to watch them or warnthem, or waken them with worldly-minded hints; or else to rise up, afterthe fashion of so many wise parents and guardians and well-intentionedfriends, and indignantly shut the stable door _after_ the steed isstolen. 

No. That something which was so sure to happen had happened; you mighthave seen it in their eyes, have heard it in the very tone of theirvoices, though they still talked in a very commonplace way, and stillcalled each other "Miss Williams" and "Mr. Roy. " In fact, their wholedemeanor to one another was characterized by the grave and even formaldecorum which was natural to very reserved people, just trembling on theverge of that discovery which will unlock the heart of each to the other, and annihilate reserve forever between the two whom Heaven has designedand meant to become one; a completed existence. If by any mischance thisdoes not come about, each may lead a very creditable and not unhappylife; but it will be a locked-up life, one to which no third person isever likely to find the key. 

Whether such natures are to envied or pitied is more than I can say; butat least they are more to be respected than the people who wear theirhearts upon their sleeves for daws to peck at, and very often are all theprouder the more they are pecked at, and the more elegantly they bleed;which was not likely to be the case with either of these young folks, young as they were. 

They were young, and youth is always interesting and even comely; butbeyond that there was nothing remarkable about either. He was Scotch;she English, or rather Welsh. She had the clear blue Welsh eye, thefunny _retrousee_ Welsh nose; but with the prettiest little mouthunderneath it--firm, close, and sweet; full of sensitiveness, but asensitiveness that was controlled and guided by that best possession toeither man or woman, a good strong will. No one could doubt that theyoung governess had, what was a very useful thing to a governess, "a willof her own;" but not a domineering or obnoxious will, which indeed isseldom will at all, but merely obstinacy. 

For the rest, Miss Williams was a little woman, or gave the impression ofbeing so, from her slight figure and delicate hands and feet. I doubt ifany one would have called her pretty, until he or she had learned to loveher. For there are two distinct kinds of love, one in which the eyeinstructs the heart, and the other in which the heart informs and guidesthe eye. There have been men who, seeing an unknown beautiful face, havefelt sure it implied the most beautiful soul in the world, pursued it, worshiped it, wooed and won it, found the fancy true, and loved the womanforever. Other men there are who would simply say, "I don't know if sucha one is handsome or not; I only know she is herself--and mine. " Bothloves are good; nay, it is difficult to say which is best. But thelatter would be the most likely to any one who became attached to FortuneWilliams. 

Also, perhaps to Robert Roy, though no one expects good looks in his sex;indeed, they are mostly rather objectionable. Women do not usually carefor a very handsome man; and men are prone to set him down as conceited. No one could lay either charge to Mr. Roy. He was only an honest-lookingScotchman, tall and strong and manly. Not "red, " in spite of his name, but dark-skinned and dark-haired; in no way resembling his greatnamesake, Rob Roy Macgregor, as the boys sometimes called him behindhis back--never to his face. Gentle as the young man was, there wassomething about him which effectually prevented any one's taking thesmallest liberty with him. Though he had been a teacher of boys eversince he was seventeen--and I have heard one of the fraternity confessthat it is almost impossible to be a school-master for ten years withoutbecoming a tyrant--still it was a pleasant and sweet-tempered face. Veryfar from a weak face, though; when Mr. Roy said a thing must be done, every one of his boys knew it _must_ be done, and there was no use sayingany more about it. 

He had unquestionably that rare gift, the power of authority; though thisdid not necessarily imply self-control; for some people can rule everybody except themselves. But Robert Roy's clear, calm, rather sad eye, and a certain patient expression about the mouth, implied that he too hadenough of the hard training of life to be able to govern himself. Andthat is more difficult to a man than to a woman. 

 "all thy passions, matched with mine, Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine. "

A truth which even Fortune's tender heart did not fully take in, deep aswas her sympathy for him; for his toilsome, lonely life, lived more inshadow than in sunshine, and with every temptation to the selfishnesswhich is so apt to follow self-dependence, and the bitterness that to aproud spirit so often makes the sting of poverty. Yet he was neitherselfish nor bitter; only a little reserved, silent, and--except withchildren--rather grave. 

She stood watching him now, for she could see him a long way off acrossthe level Links, and noticed that he stopped more than once to look atthe golf-players. He was a capital golfer himself, but had never anytime to play. Between his own studies and the teaching by which heearned the money to prosecute them, every hour was filled up. So heturned his back on the pleasant pastime, which seems to have such anextraordinary fascination for those who pursue it, and came on to hisdaily work, with that resolute deliberate step, bent on going direct tohis point and turning aside for nothing. 

Fortune knew it well by this time; had learned to distinguish it from allothers in the world. There are some footsteps which, by a pardonablepoetical license, we say "we should hear in our graves, " and though thisgirl did not think of that, for death looked far off, and she wasscarcely a poetical person, still, many a morning, when, sitting ather school-room window, she heard Mr. Roy coming steadily down thegravel-walk, she was conscious of--something that people can not feeltwice in a life-time. 

And now, when he approached with that kind smile of his, which brightenedinto double pleasure when he saw who was waiting for him, she was awareof a wild heartbeat, a sense of exceeding joy, and then of relief andrest. He was "comfortable" to her. She could express it in no otherway. At sight of his face and at sound of his voice all worldly caresand troubles, of which she had a good many, seemed to fall off. To bewith him was like having an arm to lean on, a light to walk by; and shehad walked alone so long. 

"Good-afternoon, Miss Williams. "

"Good-afternoon, Mr. Roy. "

They said no more than that, but the stupidest person in the world mighthave seen that they were glad to meet, glad to be together. Thoughneither they nor any one else could have explained the mysterious fact, the foundation of all love stories in books or in life--and which thepresent author owns, after having written many books and seen a greatdeal of life, is to her also as great a mystery as ever--Why do certainpeople like to be together? What is the inexplicable attraction whichmakes them seek one another, suit one another, put up with one another'sweaknesses, condone one another's faults (when neither are too great tolessen love), and to the last day of life find a charm in one another'ssociety which extends to no other human being. Happy love or lost love, a full world or an empty world, life with joy or life without it--that isall the difference. Which some people think very small, and that doesnot matter; and perhaps it does not--to many people. But it does tosome, and I incline to put in that category Miss Williams and Mr. Roy. 

They stood by the laurel bush, having just shaken hands more hastily thanthey usually did; but the absence of the children, and the very unusualfact of their being quite alone, gave to both a certain shyness, and shehad drawn her hand away, saying, with a slight blush:

"Mrs. Dalziel desired me to meet you and tell you that you might have aholiday today. She has taken her boys with her to Elie. I dare say youwill not be sorry to gain an hour or two for yourself; though I am sorryyou should have the trouble of the walk for nothing. "

"For nothing?"--with the least shadow of a smile, not of annoyance, certainly. 

"Indeed, I would have let you know if I could, but she decided at thevery last minute; and if I had proposed that a messenger should have beensent to stop you, I am afraid--it would not have been answered. "

"Of course not;" and they interchanged an amused look--thesefellow-victims to the well-known ways of the household--which, however, neither grumbled at; it was merely an outside thing, this treatment ofboth as mere tutor and governess. After all (as he sometimes said, whensome special rudeness--not himself, but to her--vexed him), they weretutor and governess; but they were something else besides; somethingwhich, the instant their chains were lifted off, made them feel free andyoung and strong, and comforted them with comfort unspeakable. 

"She bade me apologize. No, I am afraid, if I tell the absolute truth, she did not bid me, but I do apologize. "

"What for, Miss Williams?"

"For your having been brought out all this way just to go back again. "

"I do not mind it, I assure you. "

"And as for the lost lesson--"

"The boys will not mourn over it, I dare say. In fact, their term withme is so soon coming to an end that it does not signify much. They toldme they are going back to England to school next week. Do you go backtoo?"

"Not just yet--not till next Christmas. Mrs. Dalziel talks of winteringin London; but she is so vague in her plans that I am never sure from oneweek to another what she will do. "

"And what are your plans? _You_ always know what you intend to do. "

"Yes, I think so, " answered Miss Williams, smiling. "One of the fewthings I remember of my mother was hearing her say of me, that 'herlittle girl was a little girl who always knew her own mind. ' I think Ido. I may not be always able to carry it out, but I think I know it. "

"Of course, " said Mr. Roy, absently and somewhat vaguely, as he stoodbeside the laurel bush, pulling one of its shiny leaves to pieces, andlooking right ahead, across the sunshiny Links, the long shore ofyellow sands, where the mermaids might well delight to come and "takehands"--to the smooth, dazzling, far-away sea. No sea is more beautifulthan that at St. Andrews. 

Its sleepy glitter seemed to have lulled Robert Roy into a suddenmeditation, of which no word of his companion came to rouse him. Intruth, she, never given much to talking, simply stood, as she often did, silently beside him, quite satisfied with the mere comfort of hispresence. 

I am afraid that this Fortune Williams will be considered a veryweak-minded young woman. She was not a bit a coquette, she had not theslightest wish to flirt with any man. Nor was she a proud beautydesirous to subjugate the other sex; and drag them triumphantly at herchariot wheels. She did not see the credit, or the use, or the pleasureof any such proceeding. She was a self-contained, self-dependent woman. Thoroughly a woman; not indifferent at all to womanhood's best blessing;still she could live without it if necessary, as she could have livedwithout anything which it had pleased God to deny her. She was not acreature likely to die for love, or do wrong for love, which some peoplethink the only test of love's strength, instead of its utmost weakness;but that she was capable of love, for all her composure and quietness, capable of it, and ready for it, in its intensest, most passionate, andmost enduring form, the God who made her knew, if no one else did. 

Her time would come; indeed, had come already. She had too muchself-respect to let him guess it, but I am afraid she was very fondof--or, if that is a foolish phrase, deeply attached to--Robert Roy. He had been so good to her, at once strong and tender, chivalrous, respectful, and kind; and she had no father, no brother, no other manat all to judge him by, except the accidental men whom she had met insociety, creatures on two legs who wore coats and trousers, who had beencivil to her, as she to them, but who had never interested her in thesmallest degree, perhaps because she knew so little of them. But no; itwould have been just the same had she known them a thousand years. Shewas not "a man's woman, " that is, one of those women who feel interestedin any thing in the shape of a man, and make men interested in themaccordingly, for the root of much masculine affection is pure vanity. That celebrated Scottish song, "Come deaf, or come blind, or come cripple, O come, ony ane o' them a'! Far better be married to something, Than no to be married ava, "

was a rhyme that would never have touched the stony heart of FortuneWilliams. And yet, let me own it once more, she was very, very fond ofRobert Roy. He had never spoken to her one word of love, actual love, nomore than he spoke now, as they stood side by side, looking with the sameeyes on the same scene. I say the same eyes, for they were exceedinglyalike in their tastes. There was no need ever to go into longexplanations about this or that; a glance sufficed, or a word, to showeach what the other enjoyed; and both had the quiet conviction that theywere enjoying it together. Now as that sweet, still, sunshiny view mettheir mutual gaze, they fell into no poetical raptures, but just stoodand looked, taking it all in with exceeding pleasure, as they had donemany and many a time, but never, it seemed, so perfectly as now. 

"What a lovely afternoon!" she said at last. 

"Yes. It is a pity to waste it. Have you any thing special to do? Whatdid you mean to employ yourself with, now your birds are flown?"

"Oh, I can always find something to do. "

"But need you find it? We both work so hard. If we could only now andthen have a little bit of pleasure!"

He put it so simply, yet almost with a sigh. This poor girl's heartresponded to it suddenly, wildly. She was only twenty-five, yetsometimes she felt quite old, or rather as if she had never been young. The constant teaching, teaching of rough boys too--for she had had thewhole four till Mr. Roy took the two elder off her hands--the necessityof grinding hard out of school hours to keep herself up in Latin, Euclid, and other branches which do not usually form a part of a feminineeducation, only having a great natural love of work, she had taughtherself--all these things combined to make her life a dull life, a hardlife, till Robert Roy came into it. And sometimes even now the desperatecraving to enjoy--not only to endure, but to enjoy--to take a little ofthe natural pleasures of her age--came to the poor governess very sorely, especially on days such as this, when all the outward world looked sogay, so idle, and she worked so hard. 

So did Robert Roy. Life was not easier to him than to herself; she knewthat; and when he said, half joking, as if he wanted to feel his way, "Let us imitate our boys, and take a half holiday, " she only laughed, butdid not refuse. 

How could she refuse? There were the long smooth sands on either sidethe Eden, stretching away into indefinite distance, with not a humanbeing upon them to break their loneliness, or, if there was, he or shelooked a mere dot, not human at all. Even if these two had been afraidof being seen walking together--which they hardly were, being toounimportant for any one to care whether they were friends or lovers, orwhat not--there was nobody to see them, except in the character of twoblack dots on the yellow sands. 

"It is low water; suppose we go and look for sea-anemones. One of mypupils wants some, and I promised to try and find one the first sparehour I had. "

"But we shall not find anemones on the sands. "

"Shells, then, you practical woman! We'll gather shells. It will beall the same to that poor invalid boy--and to me, " added he, with thatinvoluntary sigh which she had noticed more than once, and which hadbegun to strike on her ears not quite painfully. Sighs, when we areyoung, mean differently to what they do in after-years. "I don't carevery much where I go, or what I do; I only want--well, to be happy foran hour, if Providence will let me. "

"Why should not Providence let you?" said Fortune, gently. "Few peopledeserve it more. "

"You are kind to think so; but you are always kind to every body. "

By this time they had left their position by the laurel bush, and werewalking along side by side, according as he had suggested. This silent, instinctive acquiescence in what he wished done--it had happened once ortwice before, startling her a little at herself; for, as I have said, Miss Williams was not at all the kind of person to do every thing thatevery body asked her, without considering whether it was right or wrong. She could obey, but it would depend entirely upon whom she had to obey, which, indeed, makes the sole difference between loving disciples andslavish fools. 

It was a lovely day, one of those serene autumn days peculiar toScotland--I was going to say Saint Andrews; and any one who knows theancient city will know exactly how it looks in the still, stronglyspiritualized light of such an afternoon, with the ruins, the castle, cathedral, and St. Regulus's tower standing out sharply against theintensely blue sky, and on the other side--on both sides--the yellowsweep of sand curving away into the distance, and melting into thesunshiny sea. 

Many a time, in their prescribed walks with their young tribe, MissWilliams and Mr. Roy had taken this stroll across the Links and round bythe sands to the mouth of the Eden, leaving behind them a long andsinuous track of many footsteps, little and large, but now there wereonly two lines--"foot-prints on the sands of Time, " as he jestinglycalled them, turning round and pointing to the marks of the dainty feetthat walked so steadily and straightly beside his own. 

"They seem made to go together, those two tracks, " said he. 

Why did he say it? Was he the kind of man to talk thus without meaningit? If so, alas! she was not exactly the woman to be thus talked to. Nothing fell on her lightly. Perhaps it was her misfortune, perhaps evenher fault, but so it was. 

Robert Roy did not "make love;" not at all. Possibly he never couldhave done it in the ordinary way. Sweet things, polite things were verydifficult to him either to do or to say. Even the tenderness that was inhim came out as if by accident; but, oh! how infinitely tender he couldbe! Enough to make any one who loved him die easily, quietly, if onlyjust holding his hand. 

There is an incident in Dickens's touching _Tale of two Cities_, where ayoung man going innocent to the guillotine, and riding on the death-cartwith a young girl whom he had never before seen, is able to sustain andcomfort her, even to the last awful moment, by the look of his face andthe clasp of his hand. That man, I have often thought, must have beensomething not unlike Robert Roy. 

Such men are rare, but they do exist; and it was Fortune's lot, or shebelieved it was, to have found one. That was enough. She went alongthe shining sands in a dream of perfect content, perfect happiness, thinking--and was it strange or wrong that she should so think?--that ifit were God's will she should thus walk through life, the thorniest pathwould seem smooth, the hardest road easy. She had no fear of life, iflived beside him; or of death--love is stronger than death; at least thissort of love, of which only strong natures are capable, and out of whichare made, not the lyrics, perhaps, but the epics, the psalms, or thetragedies of our mortal existence. 

I have explained thus much about these two friends--lovers that may be, or might have been--because they never would have done it themselves. Neither was given to much speaking. Indeed, I fear their conversationthis day, if recorded, would have been of the most feeble kind--brief, fragmentary, mere comments on the things about them, or abstract remarksnot particularly clever or brilliant. They were neither of them what youwould call brilliant people; yet they were happy, and the hours flew bylike a few minutes, until they found themselves back again beside thelaurel bush at the gate, when Mr. Roy suddenly said:

"Do not go in yet. I mean, need you go in? It is scarcely past sunset;the boys will not be home for an hour yet; they don't want you, and I--Iwant you so. In your English sense, " he added, with a laugh, referringto one of their many arguments, scholastic or otherwise, wherein she hadinsisted that to want meant _Anglice_, to wish or to crave, whereas inScotland it was always used like the French _manquer_, to miss or toneed. 

"Shall we begin that fight over again?" asked she, smiling; for everything, even fighting, seemed pleasant today. 

"No, I have no wish to fight; I want to consult you seriously on a purelypersonal matter, if you would not mind taking that trouble. "

Fortune looked sorry. That was one of the bad things in him (the bestman alive have their bad things), the pride which apes humility, theself-distrust which often wounds another so keenly. Her answer was givenwith a grave and simple sincerity that ought to have been reproachenough. 

"Mr. Roy, I would not mind any amount of trouble if I could be of use toyou; you know that. "

"Forgive me! Yes, I do know it. I believe in you and your goodness tothe very bottom of my heart. "

She tried to say "Thank you, " but her lips refused to utter a word. Itwas so difficult to go on talking like ordinary friends, when she knew, and he must know she knew, that one more word would make them--notfriends at all--something infinitely better, closer, dearer; but thatword was his to speak, not hers. There are women who will "help a manon"--propose to him, marry him indeed--while he is under the pleasingdelusion that he does it all himself; but Fortune Williams was not one ofthese. She remained silent and passive, waiting for the next thing heshould say. It came: something the shock of which she never forgot aslong as she lived; and he said it with his eyes on her face, so that, ifit killed her, she must keep quiet and composed, as she did. 

"You know the boys' lessons end next week. The week after I go--that is, I have almost decided to go--to India. "

"To India!"

"Yes, For which, no doubt, you think me very changeable, having said sooften that I meant to keep to a scholar's life, and be a professor oneday, perhaps, if by any means I could get salt to my porridge. Well, nowI am not satisfied with salt to my porridge; I wish to get rich. "

She did not say, "Why?" She thought she had not looked it; but heanswered: "Never mind why. I do wish it, and I will be rich yet, if Ican. Are you very much surprised?"

Surprised she certainly was; but she answered, honestly, "Indeed, you arethe last person I should suspect of being worldly-minded. "

"Thank you; that is kind. No, just; merely just. One ought to havefaith in people; I am afraid my own deficiency is want of faith. Ittakes so much to make me believe for a moment that any one cares for me. "

How hard it was to be silent--harder still to speak! But she did notspeak. 

"I can understand that; I have often felt the same. It is the naturalconsequence of a very lonely life. If you and I had had fathers andmothers and brothers and sisters, we might have been different. "

"Perhaps so. But about India. For a long time--that is, for manyweeks--I have been casting about in my mind how to change my way of life, to look out for something that would help me to earn money, and quickly, but there seemed no chance whatever. Until suddenly one has opened. "

And then he explained how the father of one of one of his pupils, grateful for certain benefits, which Mr. Roy did not specify, andnoticing certain business qualities in him--"which I suppose I have, though I didn't know it, " added he, with a smile--had offered him asituation in a merchant's office at Calcutta: a position of great trustand responsibility, for three years certain, with the option of thengiving it up or continuing it. 

"And continuing means making a fortune. Even three years means makingsomething, with my 'stingy' habits. Only I must go at once. Nor isthere any time left me for my decision; it must be yes or no. Whichshall it be?"

The sudden appeal--made, too, as if though it was nothing--that terribleyes or no, which to her made all the difference of living or only halfliving, of feeling the sun in or out of the world. What could sheanswer? What could she answer? Trembling violently, she yet answered, in a steady voice, "You must decide for yourself. A woman can notunderstand a man. "

"Nor a man a woman, thoroughly. There is only one thing which helps bothto comprehend one another. "

One thing! she knew what it was. Surely so did he. But that strangedistrustfulness of which he had spoken, or the hesitation which thestrongest and bravest men have at times, came between. 

 "Oh, the little more, and how much it is! Oh, the little less, and what worlds away!"

If, instead of looking vaguely out upon the sea, he had looked into thispoor girl's face; if, instead of keeping silence, he had only spoken oneword! But he neither looked nor spoke, and the moment passed by. Andthere are some moments which people would sometimes give a whole lifetimeto recall and use differently; but in vain. 

"My engagement is only for three years, " he resumed; "and, if alive, Imean to come back. Dead or alive, I was going to say, but you would notcare to see my ghost, I presume? I beg your pardon: I ought not to makea joke of such serious things. "

"No, you ought not. "

She felt herself almost speechless, that in another minute she mightburst into sobs. He saw it--at least he saw a very little of it, andmisinterpreted the rest. 

"I have tired you. Take my arm. You will soon be at home now. " Then, after a pause, "You will not be displeased at any thing I have said? Wepart friends? No, we do not part; I shall see you every day for a week, and be able to tell you all particulars of my journey, if you care tohear. "

"Thank you, yes--I do care. "

They stood together, arm in arm. The dews were falling; a sweet, softlilac haze had begun to creep over the sea--the solemn; far-away sea thathe was so soon to cross. Involuntarily she clung to his arm. So near, yet so apart! Why must it be? She could have borne his going away, ifit was for his good, if he wished it; and something whispered to her thatthis sudden desire to get rich was not for himself alone. But, oh! If hewould only speak! One word--one little word! After that, any thingmight come--the separation of life, the bitterness of death. To the twohearts that had once opened each to each, in the full recognition ofmutual love, there could never more be any real parting. 

But that one word he did not say. He only took the little hand that layon his arm and pressed it, and held it--years after, the feeling of thatclasp was as fresh on her fingers as yesterday--the hearing the foot ofsome accidental passer-by, he let it go, and did not take it again. 

Just at this moment the sound of distant carriage wheels was heard. 

"That must be Mrs. Dalziel and the boys. "

"Then I had better go. Good-by"

The daydream was over. It had all come back again--the forlorn, dreary, hard-working world. 

"Good-by, Mr. Roy. " And they shook hands. 

"One word, " he said hastily. "I shall write to you--you will allowme?--and I shall see you several times, a good many times before I go?"

"I hope so. "

"Then, for the present, good-by. That means, " he added, earnestly, "'God be with you!' And I know he always will. "

In another minute Fortune found herself standing beside the laurelbush, alone, listening to the sound of Mr. Roy's footsteps down theroad--listening, listening, as if, with the exceeding tension, herbrain would burst. 

The carriage came, passed by; it was not Mrs. Dalziel's after all. Shethought he might discover this, and come back again; so she waited alittle--five minutes, ten--beside the laurel bush. But he did not come. No footstep, no voice; nothing but the faint, far-away sound of the longwaves washing in upon the sands. 

It was not the brain that felt like to burst now, but the heart. Sheclasped her hands above her head. It did not matter; there was nocreature to see or hear that appeal--was it to man or God?--that wild, broken sob, so contrary to her usual self-controlled and self-containednature. And then she learned her forehead against the gate, just whereRobert Roy had accidentally laid his hand in opening it, and weptbitterly. 

Chapter 2. 

The "every day" on which Mr. Roy had reckoned for seeing his friend, orwhatsoever else he considered Miss Williams to be, proved a failure. Heryoungest pupil fell ill, and she was kept beside him, and away from theschool-room, until the doctor could decide whether the illness wasinfectious or not. It turned out to be very trifling--a most trivialthing altogether, yet weighted with a pain most difficult to bear, asense of fatality that almost overwhelmed one person at least. What theother felt she did not know. He came daily as usual; she watched himcome and go, and sometimes he turned and they exchanged a greeting fromthe window. But beyond that, she had to take all passively. What couldshe, only a woman, do or say or plan? Nothing. Women's business is tosit down and endure. 

She had counted these days--Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday--as if they had been years. And now they were all gone, hadfled like minutes, fled emptily away. A few fragmentary facts she hadhad to feed on, communicated by the boys in their rough talk. 

"Mr. Roy was rather cross today. "

"Not cross, Dick--only dull. "

"Mr. Roy asked why David did not come in to lessons, and said he hoped hewould be better by Saturday. "

"Mr. Roy said good-by to us all, and gave us each something to rememberhim by when he was out in India. Did Miss Williams know he was going outto India? Oh, how jolly!"

"Yes, and he sails next week, and the name of his ship is the _Queen ofthe South_, and he goes by Liverpool instead of Southampton, because itcosts less; and he leaves St. Andrews on Monday morning. "

"Are you sure he said Monday morning?" For that was Saturday night. 

"Certain, because he has to get his outfit still. Oh, what fun it mustbe!"

And the boys went on, greatly excited, and repeating everything Mr. Royhad told them--for he had made them fond of him, even in those fewmonths--expatiating with delight on his future career, as a merchant orsomething, they did not quite know what; but no doubt it would be farnicer and more amusing than stopping at home and grinding forever onhorrid books. Didn't Miss Williams think so?

Miss Williams only smiled. She knew how all his life he had loved "thosehorrid books, " preferring them to pleasure, recreation, almost to dailybread; how he had lived on the hope that one day he--born only a farmer'sson--might do something, write something. "I also am of Arcadia. " Hemight have done it or not--the genius may or may not have been there; butthe ambition certainly was. Could he have thrown it all aside? And Why?

Not for mere love of money; she knew him too well for that. He was athorough book-worm, simple in all his tastes and habits--simple almost topenuriousness; but it was a penuriousness born of hard fortunes, and henever allowed it to affect any body but himself. Still, there was nodoubt he did not care for money, or luxury, or worldly position--any ofthe things that lesser men count large enough to work and struggle anddie for. To give up the pursuits he loved, deliberately to chooseothers, to change his whole life thus, and expatriate himself, as itwere, for years--perhaps for always--why did he do it, or for whom?

Was it for a woman? Was it for her? If ever, in those long empty daysand wakeful nights, this last thought entered Fortune's mind, she stifledit as something which, once to have fully believed and then disbelievedwould have killed her. 

That she should have done the like for him--that or any thing elseinvolving any amount of heroism or self-sacrifice--well, it was natural, right; but that he should do it for her? That he should change his wholepurpose of life that he might be able to marry quickly, to shelter in hisbosom a poor girl who was not able to fight the world as a man could, the thing--not so very impossible, after all--seemed to her almostincredible! And yet (I am telling a mere love story, remember--afoolish, innocent love story, without apologizing for either the folly orthe innocence) sometimes she was so far "left to herself, " as the Scotchsay, that she did believe it: in the still twilights, in the wakefulnights, in the one solitary half hour of intense relief, when, all herboys being safe in bed, she rushed out into the garden under the silentstars to sob, to moan, to speak out loud words which nobody couldpossibly hear. 

"He is going away, and I shall never see him again. And I love himbetter than any thing in all this world. I couldn't help it--he couldn'thelp it. But, oh! It's hard--hard!"

And then, altogether breaking down, she would begin to cry like a child. She missed him so, even this week, after having for weeks and months beenwith him every day; but it was less like a girl missing her lover--whowas, after all, not her lover--than a child mourning helplessly forthe familiar voice, the guiding, helpful hand. With all the rest ofthe world Fortune Williams was an independent, energetic woman, self-contained, brave, and strong, as a solitary governess had need tobe; but beside Robert Roy she felt like a child, and she cried for himlike a child, "And with no language but a cry. "

So the week ended and Sunday came, kept at Mrs. Dalziel's like the ScotchSundays of twenty years ago. No visitor ever entered the house, whereinall the meals were cold and the blinds drawn down, as if for a funeral. The family went to church for the entire day, St. Andrews being too faroff for any return home "between sermons. " Usually one servant was leftin charge, turn and turn about; but this Sunday Mrs. Dalziel, having putthe governess in the nurse's place beside the ailing child, thoughtshrewdly she might as well put her in the servant's place too, and lether take charge of the kitchen fire as well as of little David. BeingEnglish, Miss Williams was not so exact about "ordinances" as a Scotchwoman would have been; so Mrs. Dalziel had no hesitation in asking her toremain at home alone the whole day in charge of her pupil. 

Thus faded, Fortune thought, her last hope of seeing Robert Roy again, either at church--where he usually sat in the Dalziel pew, by the oldlady's request, to make the boys "behave"--or walking down the street, where he sometimes took the two eldest to eat their "piece" at hislodgings. All was now ended; yet on the hope--or dread--of this lastSunday she had hung, she now felt with what intensity, till it was gone. 

Fortune was the kind of woman who, were it given her to fight, couldfight to the death, against fate or circumstances; but when her part wassimply passive, she could also endure. Not, as some do, with angry griefor futile resistance, but with a quiet patience so complete that only avery quick eye would have found out she was suffering at all. 

Little David did not, certainly. When hour after hour, she sat by hissofa, interesting him as best she could in the dull "good" books whichalone were allowed of Sundays, and then passing into word-of-mouthstories--the beautiful Bible stories over which her own voice trembledwhile she told them--Ruth, with her piteous cry, "Whither thou goest, Iwill go; where thou diest, I will die, and there will I be buried;"Jonathan, whose soul "clave to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved himas his own soul"--all these histories of passionate fidelity and agonizedparting--for every sort of love is essentially the same--how they went toher heart. 

Oh, the awful quietness of that Sunday, that Sabbath which was not rest, in which the hours crawled on in sunshiny stillness, neither voices norsteps nor sounds of any kind breaking the death-like hush of everything. At length the boy fell asleep; and then Fortune seemed to wake up for thefirst time to the full consciousness of what was and what was about tobe. 

All of a sudden she heard steps on the gravel below; then the hall bellrang through the silent house. She knew who it was even before sheopened the door and saw him standing there. 

"May I come in? They told me you were keeping house alone, and I said Ishould just walk over to bid you and Davie good-by. "

Roy's manner was grave and matter-of-fact--a little constrained, perhaps, but not much--and he looked so exceedingly pale and tired that; withoutany hesitation, she took him into the school-room, where they weresitting, and gave him the arm-chair by Davie's sofa. 

"Yes, I own to being rather overdone; I have had so much to arrange, forI must leave here tomorrow, as I think you know. "

"The boys told me. "

"I thought they would. I should have done it myself, but every day Ihoped to see you. It was this fellow's fault, I suppose, " pattingDavie's head. "He seems quite well now, and as jolly as possible. Youdon't know what it is to say 'Good-by, ' David, my son. " Mr. Roy, whoalways got on well with children, had a trick of calling his youngerpupils "My Son. "

"Why do you say 'good-by' at all, then!" asked the child, a mischievousbut winning young scamp of six or seven, who had as many tricks as amonkey or a magpie. In fact, in chattering and hiding things he wasnearly as bad as a magpie, and the torment of his governess's life; yetshe was fond of him. "Why do you bid us good-by, Mr. Roy? Why don't youstay always with Miss Williams and me?"

"I wish to God I could. "

She heard that, heard it distinctly, though it was spoken beneath hisbreath; and she felt the look, turned for one moment upon her as shestood by the window. She never forgot either--never, as long as shelived. Some words, some looks, can deceive, perhaps quite unconsciously, by being either more demonstrative than was meant, or the exaggeration ofcoldness to hide its opposite; but sometimes a glance, a tone, betrays, or rather reveals, the real truth in a manner that nothing afterward canever falsify. For one instant, one instant only, Fortune felt sure, quite sure, that in some way or other she was very dear to Robert Roy. If the next minute he had taken her into his arms, and said or looked thewords which, to an earnest-minded, sincere man like him, constitute apledge for life, never to be disannulled or denied, she could have hardlyhave felt more completely his own. 

But he did not say them; he said nothing at all; sat leaning his head onhis hand, with an expression so weary, so sad, that all the coaxing waysof little Davie could hardly win from him more than a faint smile. Helooked so old, too, and he was but just thirty. Only thirty--onlytwenty-five; and yet these two were bearing, seemed to have borne foryears, the burden of life, feeling all its hardships and none of itssweetnesses. Would things ever change? Would he have the courage (it washis part, not hers) to make them change, at least in one way, by bringingabout that heart-union which to all pure and true natures is consolationfor every human woe?

"I wonder, " he said, sitting down and taking David on his knee--"Iwonder if it is best to bear things one's self, or to let another sharethe burden?"

Easily--oh, how easily!--could Fortune have answered this--have told himthat, whether he wished it or not, two did really bear his burdens, andperhaps the one who bore it secretly and silently had not the lightestshare. But she did not speak: it was not possible. 

"How shall I hear of you Miss Williams?" he said, after a long silence. "You are not likely to leave the Dalziel family?"

"No, " she answered; "and if I did, I could always be heard of, theDalziels are so well known hereabouts. Still, a poor wandering governesseasily drops out of people's memory. "

"And a poor wandering tutor too. But I am not a tutor any more, and Ihope I shall not be poor long. Friends can not lose one another; suchfriends as you and I have been. I will take care we shall not do it, that is, if--but never mind that. You have been very good to me, and Ihave often bothered you very much, I fear. You will be almost glad toget rid of me. "

She might have turned upon him eyes swimming with tears--woman'stears--that engine of power which they say no man can ever resist; but Ithink, if so, a woman like Fortune would have scorned to use it. Thosepoor weary eyes, which could weep oceans alone under the stars, wereperfectly dry now--dry and fastened on the ground, as she replied, in agrave steady voice, "You do not believe that, else you would never have said it. "

Her composure must have surprised him, for he looked suddenly up, thenbegged her pardon. "I did not hurt you, surely? We must not part withthe least shadow of unkindness between us. "

"No. " She offered her hand, and he took it--gently, affectionately, butonly affectionately. The one step beyond affection, which leads intoanother world, another life, he seemed determined not to pass. 

For at least half an hour he sat there with David on his knee, or risingup restlessly to pace the room with David on his shoulder; but apparentlynot desiring the child's absence, rather wishing to keep him as a sort ofbarrier. Against what?--himself? And so minute after minute slipped by;and Miss Williams, sitting in her place by the window, already saw, dotting the Links, group after group of the afternoon church-goerswandering quietly home--so quietly, so happily, fathers and mothers andchildren, companions and friends--for whom was no parting and no pain. 

Mr. Roy suddenly took out his watch. "I must go now; I see I have spentall but my last five minutes. Good-by, David, my lad; you'll be a bigman, maybe, when I see you again. Miss Williams" (standing before herwith an expression on his face such as she had never seen before), "before I go there was a question I had determined to ask you--a purelyethical question which a friend of mine has been putting to me, and Icould not answer; that is, I could from the man's side, the worldly side. A woman might think differently. "

"What is it?"

"Simply this. If a man has not a half-penny, ought he to ask a woman toshare it? Rather an Irish way of putting the matter, " with a laugh, notwithout bitterness, "but you understand. Ought he not to wait till hehas at least something to offer besides himself: Is it not mean, selfish, cowardly, to bind a woman to all the chances or mischances ofhis lot, instead of fighting it out alone like a man: My friend thinksso, and I--I agree with him. "

"Then why did you ask me. "

The words, though low and clear, were cold and sharp--sharp with almostunbearable pain. Every atom of pride in her was roused. Whether he lovedher and would not tell her so, or loved some other woman and wished herknow it, it was all the same. He was evidently determined to go awayfree and leave her free; and perhaps many sensible men or women would sayhe was right in so doing. 

"I beg your pardon, " he said, almost humbly. "I ought not to have spokenof this at all. I ought just to have said 'Good-by, ' and nothing more. "And he took her hand. 

There was on it one ring, not very valuable, but she always liked to wearit, as it had belonged to her mother. Robert Roy drew it off, and put itdeliberately into his pocket. 

"Give me this; you shall have it back again when I am dead, or you aremarried, whichever happens first. Do you understand?"

Putting David aside (indeed, he seemed for the first time to forget theboy's presence), he took her by the two hands and looked down into herface. Apparently he read something there, something which startled him, almost shocked him. 

Irresolute, alas! Too late; for just then all the three Dalziel boysrushed into the house and the school-room, followed by their grandmother. The old lady looked a good deal surprised, perhaps a little displeased, fro on to the other. 

Mr. Roy perceived it, and recovered himself in an instant, letting goFortune's hands and placing himself in front of her, between her and Mrs. Dalziel. Long afterward she remembered that trivial act--remembered itwith the tender gratitude of the protected toward the protector, ifnothing more. 

"You see, I came, as I told you I should, if possible, to bid MissWilliams good-by, and wee Davie. They both kindly admitted me, and wehave had half an hour's merry chat, have we not Davie? Now, my man, good-by. " He took up the little fellow and kissed him, and thenextended his hand. "Good-by, Miss Williams. I hope your little pupilswill value you as you deserve. "

Then, with a courteous and formal farewell to the old lady, and a mostuproarious one from the boys, he went to the door, but turned round, saying to the eldest boy, distinctly and clearly--though she was at thefarther end of the room, she heard, and was sure he meant her to hearevery word:

"By-the-by, Archy, there is something I was about to explain to MissWilliams. Tell her I will write it. She is quite sure to have a letterfrom me tomorrow--no, on Tuesday morning. "

And so he went away, bravely and cheerily, the boys accompanying him tothe gate, and shouting and waving their hats to him as he crossed theLinks, until their grandmother reprovingly suggested that it was Sunday. 

"But Mr. Roy does not go off to India every Sunday. Hurrah! I wish wewere all going too. Three cheers for Mr. Roy. " "Mr. Roy is a very finefellow, and I hope he will do well, " said Mrs. Dalziel, touched by theirenthusiasm; also by some old memories, for, like many St. Andrews folk, she was strongly linked with India, and had sent off one-half of hernumerous family to live or die there. There was something like a tear inher old eyes, though not for the young tutor; but it effectually kept herfrom either looking at or thinking of the governess. And she forgot themboth immediately. They were merely the tutor and the governess. 

As for the boys, they chattered vehemently all tea-time about Mr. Roy, and their envy of the "jolly" life he was going to; then their mindsturned to their own affairs, and there was silence. 

The kind of silence, most of us know it, when any one belonging to ahousehold, or very familiar there, goes away on a long indefiniteabsence. At first there is little consciousness of absence at all; weare so constantly expecting the door to be opened for the customarypresence that we scarcely even miss the known voice, or face, or hand. By-and-by, however, we do miss it, and there comes a general, loud, shallow lamentation which soon cures itself, and implies an easy andcomfortable forgetfulness before long. Except with some, or possiblyonly one, who is, most likely the one who has never been heard to utter aword of regret, or seen to shed a single tear. 

Miss Williams, now left sole mistress in the school room, gave herlessons as usual there that Monday morning, and walked with all four boyson the Links all afternoon. It was a very bright day, as beautiful asSunday had been, and they communicated to her the interesting facts, learned at golfing that morning, that Mr. Roy and his portmanteau hadbeen seen at Leuchars on the way to Burntisland, and he would likely havea good crossing, as the sea was very calm. There had lately been someequinoctial gales, which had interested the boys amazingly, and theycalculated with ingenious pertinacity whether such gales were likely tooccur again when Mr. Roy was in the Bay of Biscay, and, if his ship werewrecked, what he would be supposed to do. They were quite sure that hewould conduct himself with great heroism, perhaps escape on a singleplank, or a raft made by his own hands, and they consulted Miss Williams, who of course was peripatetic cyclopedia of all scholastic information, as to which port in France of Spain he was likely to be drifted to, supposing this exciting event did happen. 

She answered their questions with her usual ready kindliness. She feltlike a person in a dream, yet a not unhappy dream, for she still heardthe voice, still felt the clasp of the strong, tender, sustaining hands. And tomorrow would be Tuesday. 

Tuesday was a wet morning. The bright days were done. Soon after dawnFortune had woke up and watched the sunrise, till a chill fog crept overthe sea and blotted it out; then gradually blotted out the land also, theLinks, the town, every thing. A regular St. Andrews "haar;" and St. Andrews people know what that is. Miss Williams had seen it once ortwice before, but never so bad as this--blighting, penetrating, and sodense that you could hardly see your hand before you. 

But Fortune scarcely felt it. She said to herself, "Today is Tuesday, "which meant nothing to any one else, every thing to her. For she knewthe absolute faithfulness, the careful accuracy, in great things andsmall, with which she had to do. If Robert Roy said, "I will write onsuch a day, " he was as sure to write as that the day would dawn; that is, so far as his own will went; and will, not circumstance, is the strongestagent in this world. 

Therefore she waited quietly for the postman's horn. It sounded at last. 

"I'll go, " cried Archy. "Just look at the haar! I shall have to gropemy way to the gate. "

He came back, after what seemed an almost endless time, rubbing his headand declaring he had nearly blinded himself by running right into thelaurel bush. 

"I couldn't see for the fog. I only hope I've left none of the lettersbehind. No, no; all right. Such a lot! It's the Indian mail. There'sfor you, and you, boys. " He dealt them out with a merry, careless hand. 

There was no letter for Miss Williams--a circumstance so usual thatnobody noticed it or her, as she sat silent in her corner, while thechildren read noisily and gaily the letters from their far-away parents. 

_Her_ letter--what had befallen it? Had he forgotten to write? ButRobert Roy never forgot any thing. Nor did he delay any thing that hecould possibly do at the time he promised. He was one of the very fewpeople in this world who in small things as in great are absolutelyreliable. It seemed so impossible to believe he had not written, when hesaid he would, that as a last hope, she stole out with a plaid over herhead and crept through the sidewalks of the garden, almost groping herway through the fog, and, like Archy, stumbling over the low boughs ofthe laurel bush to the letter-box it held. Her trembling hands felt inevery corner, but no letter was there. 

She went wearily back; weary at heart, but patient still. A love likehers, self-existent and sufficient to itself, is very patient, quiteunlike the other and more common form of the passion; not love, but adiseased craving to be loved, which causes a thousand imaginary miseriesand wrongs. Sharp was her pain, poor girl; but she was not angry, andafter her first stab of disappointment her courage rose. All was wellwith him; he had been seen cheerily starting for Edinburgh; and her owntemporary suffering was a comparatively a small thing. It could notlast: the letter would come tomorrow. 

But it did not, nor the next day, nor the next. On the fourth day herheart felt like to break. 

I think, of all pains not mortal, few are worse than this small silentagony of waiting for the post; letting all the day's hope climax upon asingle minute, which passes by, and the hope with it, and then comesanother day of dumb endurance, if not despair. This even with ordinaryletters upon which any thing of moment depends. With others, such asthis letter of Robert Roy's--let us not speak of it. Some may imagine, others may have known, a similar suspense. They will understand why, long years afterward, Fortune Williams was heard to say, with a quiver ofthe lip that could have told its bitter tale, "No; when I have a letterto write, I never put off writing it for single day. "

As these days wore on--these cruel days, never remembered without ashiver of pain, and of wonder that she could have lived through them atall--the whole fabric of reasons, arguments, excuses, that she had builtup, for him and herself, gradually crumbled away. Had she altogethermisapprehended the purport of his promised letter? Was it just someordinary note, about her boys and their studies perhaps, which, afterall, he had not thought it worthwhile to write? Yet surely it was worthwhile, if only to send a kindly and courteous farewell to a friend, afterso close an intimacy and in face of so indefinite a separation. 

A friend? Only a friend? Words may deceive, eyes seldom can. And therehad been love in his eyes. Not mere liking, but actual love. She hadseen it, felt it, with that almost unerring instinct that women have, whether they return the love or not. In the latter case, they seldomdoubt it; in the former, they often do. 

"Could I have been mistaken?" she thought, with a burning pang of shame. "Oh, why did he not speak--just one word? After that, I could have borneany thing. "

But he had not spoken, had not written. He had let himself drop out ofher life as completely as a falling star drops out of the sky, a shipsinks down in mid-ocean, or--any other poetical simile, used under suchcircumstances by romantic people. 

Fortune Williams was not romantic; at least, what romance was in her laydeep down, and came out in act rather than word. She neither wept norraved nor cultivated any external signs of a breaking heart. A littlepaler she grew, a little quieter, but nobody observed this: indeed, itcame to be one of her deepest causes of thankfulness that there wasnobody to observe any thing--that she had no living soul belonging toher, neither father, mother, brother, nor sister, to pity her or to blamehim; since to think him either blamable or blamed would have been thesharpest torture she could have known. 

She was saved that and some few other things by being only a governess, instead of one of Fate's cherished darlings, nestled in a family home. She had no time to grieve, except in the dead of night, when "the rainwas on the roof. " It so happened that, after the haar, there set in aseason of continuous, sullen, depressing rain. But at night-time, andfor the ten minutes between post hour and lesson hour--which shegenerally passed in her own room--if her mother, who died when she wasten-years old, could have seen her, she would have said, "My poor child. "

Robert Roy had once involuntarily called her so, when by accident one ofher rough boys hurt her hand, and he himself bound it up, with theindescribable tenderness which the strong only know how to show or feel. Well she remembered this; indeed, almost every thing he had said or donecame back upon her now--vividly, as we recall the words and looks of thedead--mingled with such a hungering pain, such a cruel "miss" of him, daily and hourly, his companionship, help, counsel, every thing she hadlacked all her life, and never found but with him and from him. And hewas gone, had broken his promise, had left her without a single farewellword. 

That he had cared for her, in some sort of way, she was certain; for hewas one of those who never say a word too large--nay, he usually saidmuch less than he felt. Whatever he had felt for her--whetherfriendship, affection, love--must have been true. There was in hisnature intense reserve, but no falseness, no insincerity, not an atom ofpretense of any kind. 

If he did not love her, why not tell her so? What was there to hinderhim? Nothing, except that strange notion of the "dishonorableness" ofasking a woman's love when one has nothing but love to give her inreturn. This, even, he had seemed at the last to have set aside, as ifhe could not go away without speaking. And yet he did it. 

Perhaps he thought she did not care for him? He had once said a manought to feel quite sure of a woman before he asked her. Also, that heshould never ask twice, since, if she did not know her own mind then, shenever would know it, and such a woman was the worst possible bargain aman could make in marriage. 

Not know her own mind! Alas, poor soul, Fortune knew it only too well. In that dreadful fortnight it was "borne in upon her, " as pious peoplesay, that though she felt kindly to all human beings, the one human beingwho was necessary to her--without whom her life might be busy, indeed, and useful, but never perfect, an endurance instead of joy--was thisyoung man, as solitary as herself, as poor, as hard-working; good, gentle, brave Robert Roy. 

Oh why had they not come together, heart to heart--just they two, soalone in the world--and ever after belonged to one another, even thoughit had been years and years before they were married?

"If only he had love me, and told me so!" was her bitter cry. "I couldhave waited ever so hardly, and quite alone, if only I might have had aright to him, and been his comfort, as he was mine. But now--now--"

Yet still she waited, looking forward daily to that dreadful post hour;and when it had gone by, nerving herself to endure until tomorrow. Atlast hope, slowly dying, was killed outright. 

One day at tea-time the boys blurted out, with happy carelessness, theirshort-lived regrets for him being quite over, the news that Mr. Roy hadsailed. 

"Not for Calcutta, but Shanghai, a much longer voyage. He can't be heardof for a year at least, and it will be many years before he comes back. I wonder if he will come back rich. They say he will: quite a nabob, perhaps, and take a place in the Highlands, and invite us all--you too, Miss Williams. I once asked him, and he said, 'Of course. ' Stop, youare pouring my tea over into the saucer. "

This was the only error she made, but went on filling the cups with asteady hand, smiling and speaking mechanically, as people can sometimes. When the tea was quite over, she slipped away into her room, and wasmissing for a long time. 

So all was over. No more waiting for that vague "something to happen. "Nothing could happen now. He was far away across the seas, and she mustjust go back to her old monotonous life, as if it had never been anydifferent--as if she had never seen his face nor heard his voice, neverknown the blessing of his companionship, friendship, love, whatever itwas, or whatever he had meant it to be. No, he could not have loved her;or to have gone away would have been--she did not realize whether rightor wrong--but simply impossible. 

Once, wearying herself with helpless conjectures, a thought, sudden andsharp as steel, went through her heart. He was nearly thirty; few livesare thus long without some sort of love in them. Perhaps he was alreadybound to some other woman, and finding himself drifting into too pleasantintimacy with herself, wished to draw back in time. Such things hadhappened, sometimes almost blamelessly, though most miserably to allparties. But with him it was not likely to happen. He was too clearsighted, strong, and honest. He would never "drift" into anything. Whathe did would be done with a calm deliberate will, incapable of theslightest deception either toward others or himself. Besides, he had atdifferent times told her the whole story of his life, and there was nolove in it; only work, hard work, poverty, courage, and endurance, likeher own. 

"No, he could never have deceived me, neither me nor any one else, " sheoften said to herself, almost joyfully, though the tears were runningdown. "What ever it was, it was not that. I am glad--glad. I had farrather believe he never loved me than that he had been false to anotherwoman for my sake. And I believe in him still; I shall always believe inhim. He is perfectly good, perfectly true. And so it does not muchmatter about me. "

I am afraid those young ladies who like plenty of lovers, who expect tobe adored, and are vexed when they are not adored, and most noblyindignant when forsaken, will think very meanly of my poor FortuneWilliams. They may console themselves by thinking she was not a younglady at all--only a woman. Such women are not too common, but they existoccasionally. And they bear their cross and dree their weird (i. E. , endure); but their lot, at any rate, only concerns themselves, and hasone advantage, that it in no way injures the happiness of other people. 

Humble as she was, she had her pride. If she wept, it was out of sight. If she wished herself dead, and a happy ghost, that by any means shemight get near him, know where he was, and what he was doing, thesedreams came only when her work was done, her boys asleep. Day neverbetrayed the secrets of the night. She set to work every morning at herdaily labors with a dogged persistence, never allowing herself a minute'sidleness wherein to sit down and mourn. And when, despite her will, shecould not conquer the fits of nervous irritability that came over her attimes--when the children's innocent voices used to pierce her likeneedles, and their incessant questions and perpetual company were almostmore than she could bear--still, even then, all she did was to run awayand hide herself for a little, coming back with a pleasant face and asmooth temper. Why should she scold them, poor lambs? They were all shehad to love, or that loved her. And they did love her, with all theirboyish hearts. 

One day, however--the day before they all left St. Andrews for England, the two elder to go to school, and the younger ones to return with her totheir maternal grand-mother in London--David said something which woundedher, vexed her, made her almost thankful to be going away. 

She was standing by the laurel bush, which somehow had for her a strangefascination, and her hand was on the letter-box which the boys and Mr. Roy had made. There was a childish pleasure in touching it or any thinghe had touched. 

"I hope grandmamma won't take away that box, " said Archy. "She ought tokeep it in memory of us and Mr. Roy. How cleverly he made it! Wasn't heclever now, Miss Williams?"

"Yes, " she answered and no more. 

"I've got a better letter-box than yours, " said little Davie, mysteriously. "Shall I show it to you, Miss Williams? And perhaps, "with a knowing look--the mischievous lad! and yet he was more loving andlovable than all the rest, Mr. Roy's favorite, and hers--"perhaps youmight even find a letter in it. Cook says she has seen you many a timewatching for a letter from your sweetheart. Who is he?"

"I have none. Tell cook she should not talk such nonsense to littleboys, " said the governess, gravely. But she felt hot from head to foot, and turning, walked slowly in-doors. She did not go near the laurel bushagain. 

After that, she was almost glad to get away, among strange people andstrange places, where Robert Roy's name had never been heard. Thefamiliar places--hallowed as no other spot in this world, could everbe--passed out of sight, and in another week her six months' happy lifeat St. Andrews had vanished, "like a dream when one awaketh. "

Had she awaked? Or was her daily, outside life to be henceforth thedream, and this the reality?

Chapter 3. 

What is a "wrecked" life? One which the waves of inexorable fate havebeaten to pieces, or one that, like an unseaworthy ship, is ready to godown in any waters? What most destroy us? the things we might well blameourselves for, only we seldom do, our follies, blunders, errors, notcounting actual sins? or the things for which we can blame nobody butProvidence--if we dared--such as our losses and griefs, our sicknesses ofbody and mind, all those afflictions which we call "the visitation ofGod?" Ay, and so they are, but not sent in wrath, or for ultimate evil. No amount of sorrow need make any human life harmful to man or unholybefore God, as a discontented, unhappy life must needs be unholy in thesight of Him who in the mysterious economy of the universe seems to haveone absolute law--He wastes nothing. He modifies, transmutes, substitutes, re-applies material to new uses; but apparently by Himnothing is ever really lost, nothing thrown away. 

Therefore, I incline to believe, when I hear people talking of a"wrecked" existence, that whosoever is to blame, it is not Providence. 

Nobody could have applied the term to Fortune Williams, looking ather as she sat in the drawing-room window of a house at Brighton, justwhere the gray of the Esplanade meets the green of the Downs--a ladies'boarding-school, where she had in her charge two pupils, left behindfor the holidays, while the mistress took a few weeks' repose. She satwatching the sea, which was very beautiful, as even the Brighton sea canbe sometimes. Her eyes were soft and calm; her hands were folded on herblack silk dress, her pretty little tender-looking hands, unringed, forshe was still Miss Williams, still a governess. 

But even at thirty-five--she had now reached that age, nay, passedit--she was not what you would call "old-maidish. " Perhaps because themotherly instinct, naturally very strong in her, had developed more andmore. She was one of those governesses--the only sort who ought ever toattempt to be governesses--who really love children, ay, despite theirnaughtinesses and mischievousnesses and worrying ways; who feel that, after all, these little ones are "of the kingdom of heaven, " and that thetask of educating them for that kingdom somehow often brings us nearer toit ourselves. 

Her heart, always tender to children, had gone out to them more and moreevery year, especially after that fatal year when a man took it and brokeit. No, not broke it, but threw it carelessly away, wounding it sosorely that it never could be quite itself again. But it was a true andwarm and womanly heart still. 

She had never heard of him--Robert Roy--never once, in any way, sincethat Sunday afternoon when he said, "I will write tomorrow, " and did notwrite, but let her drop from him altogether like a worthless thing. Cruel, somewhat, even to a mere acquaintance--but to her?

Well, all was past and gone, and the tide of years had flowed over it. Whatever it was, a mistake, a misfortune, or a wrong, nobody knew anything about it. And the wound even was healed, in a sort of a way, andchiefly by the unconscious hands of these little "ministering angels, "who were angels that never hurt her, except by blotting their copy-booksor not learning their lessons. 

I know it may sound a ridiculous thing that a forlorn governess shouldbe comforted for a lost love by the love of children; but it is true tonature. Women's lives have successive phases, each following the other innatural gradation--maidenhood, wifehood, motherhood: in not one of which, ordinarily, we regret the one before it, to which it is neverthelessimpossible to go back. But Fortune's life had had none of these, excepting, perhaps, her one six months' dream of love and spring. Thatbeing over, she fell back upon autumn days and autumn pleasures--whichare very real pleasures, after all. 

As she sat with the two little girls leaning against her lap--they wereIndian children, unaccustomed to tenderness, and had already grown veryfond of her--there was a look in her face, not at all like an ancientmaiden or a governess, but almost motherly. You see the like in thefaces of the Virgin Mary, as the old monks used to paint her, quaint, andnot always lovely, but never common or coarse, and spiritualized by alook of mingled tenderness and sorrow into something beyond all beauty. 

This woman's face had it, so that people who had known Miss Williams asa girl were astonished to find her, as a middle-aged woman, grown "sogood-looking. " To which one of her pupils once answered, naively, "Itis because she looks so good. "

But this was after ten years and more. Of the first half of those yearsthe less that is said, the better. She did not live; she merely enduredlife. Monotony without, a constant aching within--a restless gnawingwant, a perpetual expectation, half hope, half fear; no human being couldbear all this without being the worse for it, or the better. But thebetterness came afterward, not first. 

Sometimes her cravings to hear the smallest tidings of him, only if hewere alive or dead, grew into such an agony that, had it not been forher entire helplessness in the matter, she might have tried some meansof gaining information. But from his sudden change of plans, she wasignorant even of the name of the ship he had sailed by, the firm he hadgone to. She could do absolutely nothing, and learn nothing. Here wassomething like the "Affliction of Margaret, " that poem of Wordsworth'swhich, when her little pupils recited it--as they often did--made herready to sob out loud from the pang of its piteous reality:

 "I look for ghosts, but none will force Their way to me: 'tis falsely said That there was ever intercourse Betwixt the living and the dead: For surely then I should have sight Of him I wait for day and night With love and longings infinite. "

Still, in the depth of her heart she did not believe Robert Roy was dead;for her finger was still empty of that ring--her mother's ring--which hehad drawn off, promising its return "when he was dead or she wasmarried. " This implied that he never meant to lose sight of her. Nor, indeed, had he wished it, would it have been very difficult to find her, these ten years having been spent entirely in one place, an obscurevillage in the south of England, where she had lived as governess--firstin the squire's family, then the rector's. 

From the Dalziel family, where, as she had said to Mr. Roy, she hoped toremain for years, she had drifted away almost immediately; within a fewmonths. At Christmas old Mrs. Dalziel had suddenly died; her son hadreturned home, sent his four boys to school in Germany, and gone backagain to India. There was now, for the first time for half a century, not a single Dalziel left in St. Andrews. 

But though all ties were broken connecting her with the dear old city, her boys still wrote to her now and then, and she to them, with apersistency for which her conscience smote her sometimes, knowing it wasnot wholly for their sakes. But they had never been near her, and shehad little expectation of seeing any of them ever again, since by thistime she had lived long enough to find out how easily people do driftasunder, and lose all clue to one another, unless some strong firm willor unconquerable habit of fidelity exists on one side or the other. 

Since the Dalziels she had only lived in the two families before named, and had been lately driven from the last one by a catastrophe, if it maybe called so, which had been the bitterest drop in her cup since the timeshe left St. Andrews. 

The rector--a widower, and a feeble, gentle invalid, to whom naturallyshe had been kind and tender, regarding him with much the same sort ofmotherly feeling as she had regarded his children--suddenly asked her tobecome their mother in reality. 

It was a great shock and a pang: almost a temptation; for they all lovedher, and wished to keep her. She would have been such a blessing, sucha brightness, in that dreary home. And to a woman no longer young, whohad seen her youth pass without any brightness in it, God knows whatan allurement it is to feel she has still the power of brighteningother lives. If Fortune had yielded--if she had said yes, and marriedthe rector--it would have been hardly wonderful, scarcely blamable. Nor would it have been the first time that a good, conscientious, tender-hearted woman has married a man for pure tenderness. 

But she did not do it; not even when they clung around her--thoseforlorn, half-educated, but affectionate girls--entreating her to "marrypapa, and make us all happy. " She could not--how could she? She feltvery kindly to him. He had her sincere respect, almost affection; butwhen she looked into her own heart, she found there was not in it oneatom of love, never had been, for any man alive except Robert Roy. Whilehe was unmarried, for her to marry would be impossible. 

And so she had the wisdom and courage to say to herself, and to them all, "This can not be;" to put aside the cup of attainable happiness, whichmight never have proved real happiness, because founded on aninsincerity. 

But the pain this cost was so great, the wrench of parting from her poorgirls so cruel, that after it Miss Williams had a sharp illness, thefirst serious illness of her life. She struggled through it, quietly andalone, in one of those excellent "Governesses' Homes, " where every bodywas very kind to her--some more than kind, affectionate. It was strange, she often thought, what an endless amount of affection followed herwherever she went. She was by no means one of those women who go aboutthe world moaning that nobody loves them. Every body loved her, and sheknew it--every body whose love was worth having--except Robert Roy. 

Still her mind never changed; not even when, in the weakness of illness, there would come vague dreams of that peaceful rectory, with its quietrooms and green garden; of the gentle, kindly hearted father, and the twoloving girls whom she could have made so happy, and perhaps won happinessherself in the doing of it. 

"I am a great fool, some people would say, " thought she, with a sadsmile; "perhaps rather worse. Perhaps I am acting absolutely wrong inthrowing away my chance of doing good. But I can not help it--I can nothelp it. "

So she kept to her resolution, writing the occasional notes she hadpromised to write to her poor forsaken girls, without saying a word ofher illness; and when she grew better, though not strong enough toundertake a new situation, finding her money slipping away--though, withher good salaries and small wants, she was not poor, and had alreadybegun to lay up for a lonely old age--she accepted this temporaryhome at Miss Maclachlan's, at Brighton. Was it--so strange are theunder-currents which guide one's outward life--was it because she hadfound a curious charm in the old lady's Scotch tongue, unheard for years?That the two little pupils were Indian children, and that the house wasat the seaside?--and she had never seen the sea since she left St. Andrews. 

It was going back to the days of her youth to sit, as now, watching thesunshine glitter on the far-away ocean. The very smell of the sea-weed, the lap-lap of the little waves, brought back old recollections sovividly--old thoughts, some bitter, some sweet, but the sweetnessgenerally over-coming the bitterness. 

 "I have had all the joy that the world could bestow; I have lived--I have loved. "

So sings the poet, and truly. Though to this woman love had brought notjoy, but sorrow, still she had loved, and it had been the main-stay andstronghold of her life, even though to outsiders it might have appearedlittle better than a delusion, a dream. Once, and by one only, her wholenature had been drawn out, her ideal of moral right entirely satisfied. And nothing had ever shattered this ideal. She clung to it, as we clingto the memory of our dead children, who are children forever. 

With a passionate fidelity she remembered all Robert Roy's goodness, hisrare and noble qualities, resolutely shutting her eyes to what she mighthave judged severely, had it happened to another person--his total, unexplained, and inexplicable desertion of herself. It was utterlyirreconcilable with all she had ever known of him; and being powerless tounravel it, she left it, just as we have to leave many a mystery inheaven and earth, with the humble cry, "I can not understand--I love. "

She loved him, that was all; and sometimes even yet, across that desertof despair, stretching before and behind her, came a wild hope, almost aconviction, that she would meet him again, somewhere, somehow. This day, even, when, after an hour's delicious idleness, she roused herself totake her little girls down to the beach, and sat on the shingle whilethey played, the sound and sights of the sea brought old times so vividlyback that she could almost have fancied coming behind her the familiarstep, the pleasant voice, as when Mr. Roy and his boys used to overtakeher on the St. Andrews shore--Robert Roy, a young man, with his life allbefore him, as was hers. Now she was middle-aged, and he--he must beover forty by this time. How strange!

Stranger still that there had never occurred to her one possibility--thathe "was not, " that God had taken him. But this her heart absolutelyrefused to accept. So long as he was in it, the world would never bequite empty to her. Afterward--But, as I said, there are some thingswhich can not be faced and this was one of them. 

All else she had faced long ago. She did not grieve now. As she walkedwith her children, listening to their endless talk with that patientsympathy which made all children love her, and which she often found wasa better help to their education than dozens of lessons, there was on herface that peaceful expression which is the greatest preservative ofyouth, the greatest antidote to change. And so it was no wonder that atall lad, passing and re-passing on the Esplanade with another youth, looked at her more than once with great curiosity, and advanced withhesitating politeness. 

"I beg your pardon, ma'am, if I mistake; but you are so like a lady Ionce knew, and am now looking for. Are you Miss Williams?"

"My name is Williams, certainly; and you"--something in the curly lighthair, the mischievous twinkle of the eye, struck her--"you can not be, it is scarcely possible--David Dalziel?"

"But, I am, though, " cried the lad, shaking her hand as if he would shakeit off. "And I call myself very clever to have remembered you, though Iwas such a little fellow when you left us, and I have only seen yourphotograph since. But you are not a bit altered--not one bit. And as Iknew by your last letter to Archy that you were at Brighton, I thoughtI'd risk it and speak. Hurra! How very jolly!"

He had grown a handsome lad, the pretty wee Davie, an honest-looking ladtoo, apparently, and she was glad to see him. From the dignity of hiseighteen years and five feet ten of height, he looked down upon thegoverness, and patronized her quite tenderly--dismissing his friend andwalking home with her, telling her on the way all his affairs and that ofhis family with the volubility of little David Dalziel at St. Andrews. 

"No, I've not forgotten St. Andrews one bit, though I was so small. Iremember poor old grannie, and her cottage, and the garden, and theLinks, and the golfing, and Mr. Roy. By-the-by, what has become of Mr. Roy?"

The suddenness of the question, nay, the very sound of a name totallysilent for so many years, made Fortune's heart throb till its beatingwas actual pain. Then came a sudden desperate hope, as she answered:

"I can not tell. I have never heard any thing of him. Have you?"

"No--yet, let me see. I think Archy once got a letter from him, a yearor so after he went away; but we lost it somehow, and never answered it. We have never heard any thing since. "

Miss Williams sat down on one of the benches facing the sea, with amurmured excuse of being "tired. " One of her little girls crept besideher, stealing a hand in hers. She held it fast, her own shook so; butgradually she grew quite herself again. "I have been ill, " sheexplained, "and can not walk far. Let us sit down here a little. Youwere speaking about Mr. Roy, David?"

"Yes. What a good fellow he was! We called him Rob Roy, I remember, butonly behind his back. He was strict, but he was a jolly old soul for allthat. I believe I should know him again any day, as I did you. Butperhaps he is dead; people die pretty fast abroad, and ten years is along time, isn't it?"

"A long time. And you never got any more letters?"

"No; or if they did come, they were lost, being directed probably to thecare of poor old grannie, as ours was. We thought it so odd, after shewas dead, you know. "

Thus the boy chattered on--his tongue had not shortened with hisincreasing inches--and every idle word sank down deep in his oldgoverness's heart. 

Then it was only her whom Robert Roy had forsaken. He had written to hisboys, probably would have gone on writing had they answered his letter. He was neither faithless nor forgetful. With an ingenuity that mighthave brought to any listener a smile or a tear, Miss Williams led theconversation round again till she could easily ask more concerning thatone letter; but David, remembered little or nothing, except that it wasdated from Shanghai, for his brothers had had a discussion whetherShanghai was in China or Japan. Then, boy-like, they had forgotten thewhole matter. 

"Yes, by this time every body had forgotten him, " thought Fortune toherself, when having bidden David good-by at her door and arranged tomeet him again--he was on a visit at Brighton before matriculating atOxford next term--she sat down in own room, with a strangely bewilderedfeeling. "Mine, all mine, " she said, and her heart closed itself overhim, her old friend at least, if nothing more, with a tenacity oftenderness as silent as it was strong. 

From that day, though she saw, and was determined henceforward to see, asmuch as she could of young David Dalziel, she never once spoke to him ofMr. Roy. 

Still, to have the lad coming about her was a pleasure, a fond link withthe past, and to talk to him about his future was a pleasure too. He wasthe one of all the four--Mr. Roy always said so--who had "brains" enoughto become a real student; and instead of following the others to India, he was to go to Oxford, and do his best there. His German education hadleft him few English friends. He was an affectionate, simple-heartedlad, and now that his mischievous days were done, was taking to thoroughhard work. He attached himself to his old governess with an enthusiasmthat a lad in his teens often conceives for a woman still young enough tobe sympathetic, and intelligent enough to guide without ruling the errantfancy of that age. She, too, soon grew very fond of him. It made herstrangely happy, this sudden rift of sunshine out of the never-forgottenheaven of her youth, now almost as far off as heaven itself. 

I have said she never spoke to David about Mr. Roy, nor did she; butsometimes he spoke, and then she listened. It seemed to cheer her forhours, only to hear that name. She grew stronger, gayer, younger. Everybody said how much good the sea was doing her, and so it was; but notexactly in the way people thought. The spell of silence upon her lifehad been broken, and though she knew all sensible persons would esteemher in this, as in that other matter, a great "fool, " still she could notstifle a vague hope that some time or other her blank life might change. Every little wave that swept in from the mysterious ocean, the ocean thatlay between them two, seemed to carry a whispering message and lay it ather feet, "Wait and be patient, wait and be patient. "

She did wait, and the message came at last. 

One day David Dalziel called, on one of his favorite daily rides, andthrew a newspaper down at her door, where she was standing. 

"An Indian paper my mother has just sent. There's something in it thatwill interest you, and--"

His horse galloped off with the unfinished sentence; and supposing it wassomething concerning his family, she put the paper in her pocket to readat leisure while she sat on the beach. She had almost forgotten it, asshe watched the waves, full of that pleasant idleness and dreamy peace sonew in her life, and which the sound of the sea so often brings topeaceful hearts, who have no dislike to its monotony, no dread of thosesolemn thoughts of infinitude, time and eternity, God and death and love, which it unconsciously gives, and which I think is the secret why somepeople say they have "such a horror of the sea-side. "

She had none; she loved it, for its sights and sounds were mixed up withall the happiness of her young days. She could have sat all thissunshiny morning on the beach doing absolutely nothing, had she notremembered David's newspaper; which, just to please him, she must lookthrough. She did so, and in the corner, among the brief list of names inthe obituary, she saw that of "Roy. " Not himself, as she soon found, assoon as she could see to read, in the sudden blindness that came overher. Not himself. Only his child. 

"On Christmas-day, at Shanghai, aged three and a half years, Isabella, the only and beloved daughter of Robert and Isabella Roy. "

He was alive, then. That was her first thought, almost a joyful one, showing how deep had been her secret dread of the contrary. And he wasmarried. His "only and beloved daughter?" Oh! how beloved she couldwell understand. Married, and a father; and his child was dead. 

Many would think it strange (it would be in most women, but it was not inthis woman) that the torrent of tears which burst forth, after her firstfew minutes of dry-eyed anguish, was less for herself, because he wasmarried and he had lost him, than for him, because he had had a child andlost it--he who was so tender of heart, so fond of children. The thoughtof his grief brought such a consecration with it, that her grief--thegrief most women might be expected to feel on reading suddenly in anewspaper that the man they loved was married to another--did not come. At least not at once. It did not burst upon her, as sorrow doessometimes, like a wild beast out of a jungle, slaying and devouring. Shewas not slain, not even stunned. After a few minutes it seemed to her asif it had happened long ago--as if she had always known it must happen, and was not astonished. 

His "only and beloved daughter!" The words sung themselves in and out ofher brain, to the murmur of the sea. How he must have loved the child!She could almost see him with the little one in his arms, or watchingover her bed, or standing beside her small coffin. Three years and ahalf old! Then he must have been married a good while--long and longafter she had gone on thinking of him as no righteous woman ever can goon thinking of another woman's husband. 

One burning blush, one shiver from head to foot, one cry of piteousdespair, which nobody heard but God--and she was not afraid of Hishearing--and the struggle was over. She saw Robert Roy, with his childin his arms with his wife by his side, the same and yet a totallydifferent man. 

She, too, when she rose up, and tried to walk, tried to feel that it wasthe same sea, the same shore, the same earth and sky, was a totallydifferent woman. Something was lost, something never to be retrieved onthis side the grave, but also something was found. 

"He is alive, " she said to herself, with the same strange joy; for nowshe knew where he was, and what had happened to him. The silence of allthese years was broken, the dead had come to life again, and the lost, ina sense, was found. 

Fortune Williams rose up and walked, in more senses than one; went roundto fetch her little girls, as she had promised, from that newly openeddelight of children, the Brighton Aquarium; staid a little with them, admiring the fishes; and when she reached home, and found David Dalzielin the drawing-room, met him and thanked him for bringing her thenewspaper. "I suppose it was on account of that obituary notice of Mr. Roy's child, " said she, calmly naming the name now. "What a sad thing!But still I am glad to know he is alive and well. So will you be. Shallyou write to him?"

"Well, I don't know, " answered the lad, carelessly crumpling up thenewspaper and throwing it on the fire. Miss Williams made a faintmovement to snatch it out, then disguised the gesture in some way, andsilently watched it burn. "I don't quite see the use of writing. He's afamily man now, and must have forgotten all about his old friends. Don'tyou think so?"

"Perhaps; only he was not the sort of person easily to forget. "

She could defend him now; she could speak of him, and did speak more thanonce afterward, when David referred to the matter. And then the ladquitted Brighton for Oxford, and she was left in her old loneliness. 

A loneliness which I will not speak of. She herself never referred tothat time. After it, she roused herself to begin her life anew in afresh home, to work hard, not only for daily bread but for that humbleindependence which she was determined to win before the dark hour whenthe most helpful become helpless, and the most independent are drivento fall a piteous burden into the charitable hands of friends orstrangers--a thing to her so terrible that to save herself from thepossibility of it, she who had never leaned upon any body, never had anybody to lean on, became her one almost morbid desire. 

She had no dread of a solitary old age but an old age beholden to eitherpublic or private charity was to her intolerable; and she had now fewyears left her to work in--a governess's life wears women out very fast. She determined to begin to work again immediately, laying by as much aspossible yearly against the days when she could work no more; consultedMiss Maclachlan, who was most kind; and then sought and was just aboutgoing to another situation, with the highest salary she had yet earned, when an utterly unexpected change altered every thing. 

Chapter 4. 

The fly was already at the door, and Miss Williams, with her smallluggage, would in five minutes have departed, followed by the good wishesof all the household, from Miss Maclachlan's school to her new situation, when the postman passed and left a letter for her. 

"I will put it in my pocket and read it in the train, " she said, with aslight change of color. For she recognized the handwriting of that goodman who had loved her, and whom she could not love. 

"Better read it now. No time like the present, " observed MissMaclachlan. 

Miss Williams did so. As soon as she was fairly started and alone in thefly, she opened it, with hands slightly trembling, for she was touched bythe persistence of the good rector, and his faithfulness to her, a poorgoverness, when he might have married, as they said in his neighborhood, "anybody. " He would never marry any body now--he was dying. 

"I have come to feel how wrong I was, " he wrote, "in ever trying tochange our happy relations together. I have suffered for this--so havewe all. But it is now too late for regret. My time has come. Do notgrieve yourself by imagining it has come the faster through any decisionof yours, but by slow, inevitable disease, which the doctors have onlylately discovered. Nothing could have saved me. Be satisfied that thereis no cause for you to give yourself one moment's pain. " (How she sobbedover those shaky lines, more even than over the newspaper lines which shehad read that sun-shiny morning on the shore!) "Remember only that youmade me very happy--me and all mine--for years; that I loved you, as evenat my age a man can love; as I shall love you to the end, which can notbe very far off now. Would you dislike coming to see me just once again?My girls will so very glad, and nobody knows any thing. Besides, whatmatter? I am dying. Come, if you can within a week or so; they tell meI may last thus long. And I want to consult with you about my children. Therefore I will not say good-by now, only good-night, and God blessyou. "

But it was good-by, after all. Though she did not wait the week; indeed, she waited for nothing, considered nothing, except her gratitude to thisgood man--the only man who had loved her--and her affection for the twogirls, who would soon be fatherless; though she sent a telegram fromBrighton to say she was coming, and arrived within twenty-four hours, still--she came too late. 

When she reached the village she heard that his sufferings were all over;and a few yards from his garden wall, in the shade of the church-yardlime-tree, the old sexton was busy re-opening, after fourteen years, thefamily grave, where he was to be laid beside his wife the day afterto-morrow. His two daughters, sitting alone together in the melancholyhouse, heard Miss Williams enter, and ran to meet her. With a feeling ofnearness and tenderness such as she had scarcely ever felt for any humanbeing, she clasped them close, and let them weep their hearts out in hermotherly arms. 

Thus the current of her whole life was changed; for when Mr. Moseley'swill was opened, it was found that, besides leaving Miss Williams ahandsome legacy, carefully explained as being given "in gratitude for hercare of his children, " he had chosen her as their guardian, until theycame of age or married, entreating her to reside with them, and desiringthem to pay her all the respect due to "a near and dear relative. " Thetenderness with which he had arranged every thing, down to the minutestpoints, for them and herself, even amidst all his bodily sufferings, andin face of the supreme hour--which he had met, his daughters said, with amarvelous calmness, even joy--touched Fortune as perhaps nothing had evertouched her in all her life before. When she stood with her two poororphans beside their father's grave, and returned with them to thedesolate house, vowing within herself to be too them, all but in name, the mother he had wished her to be, this sense of duty--the strange newduty which had suddenly come to fill her empty life--was so strong, thatshe forgot every thing else--even Robert Roy. 

And for months afterward--months of anxious business, involving theleaving of the Rectory, and the taking of a temporary house in thevillage, until they could decide where finally to settle--Miss Williamshad scarcely a moment or a thought to spare for any beyond the vividpresent. Past and future faded away together, except so far as concernedher girls. 

"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, " were wordswhich had helped her through many a dark time. Now, with all her might, she did her motherly duty to the orphan girls; and as she did so, by-and-by she began strangely to enjoy it, and to find also not a littleof motherly pride and pleasure in them. She had not time to think ofherself at all, or of the great blow which had fallen, the great changewhich had come, rendering it impossible for her to let herself feel asshe had used to feel, dream as she used to dream, for years and yearspast. That one pathetic line

"I darena think o' Jamie, for that wad be a sin, " burned itself intoher heart, and needed nothing more. 

"My children! I must only love my children now, " was her continualthought, and she believed she did so. 

It was not until spring came, healing the girls' grief as naturally as itcovered their father's grave with violets and primroses, and making themcling a little less to home and her, a little more to the returningpleasures of their youth, for they were two pretty girls, well-born, withtolerable fortunes, and likely to be much sought after--not until thespring days left her much alone, did Fortune's mind recur to an ideawhich had struck her once, and then been set aside--to write to RobertRoy. Why should she not? Just a few friendly lines, telling him how, after long years, she had seen his name in the papers; how sorry she was, and yet glad--glad to think he was alive and well, and married; how shesent all kindly wishes to his wife and himself, and so on. In short thesort of letter that any body might write or receive, whatever had beenthe previous link between them. And she wrote it on an April day, one ofthose first days of spring which make young hearts throb with a vaguedelight, a nameless hope; and older ones--but is there any age when hopeis quite dead? I think not, even to those who know that the only springthat will ever come to them will dawn in the world everlasting. 

When her girls, entering, offered to post her letter, and Miss Williamsanswered gently that she would rather post it herself, as it required aforeign stamp, how little they guessed all that lay underneath, and how, over the first few lines, her hand had shaken so that she had to copy itthree times. But the address, "Robert Roy, Shanghai"--all she could put, but she had little doubt it would find him--was written with that firm, clear hand which he had so often admired, saying he wished she couldteach his boys to write as well. Would he recognize it? Would he beglad or sorry, or only indifferent? Had the world changed him? or, ifshe could look at him now, would he be the same Robert Roy--simple, true, sincere, and brave--every inch a man and a gentleman?

For the instant the old misery came back; the sharp, sharp pain; butshe smothered it down. His dead child, his living, unknown wife, camebetween, with their soft ghostly hands. He was still himself; shehoped absolutely unchanged; but he was hers no more. Yet that strangeyearning, the same which had impelled Mr. Moseley to write and say, "Comeand see me before I die, " seemed impelling her to stretch a hand outacross the seas--"Have you forgotten me: I have never forgotten you. "As she passed through the church-yard on her way to the village, and sawthe rector's grave lie smiling in the evening sunshine, Fortune thoughtwhat a strange lot hers had been. The man who had loved her, the manwhom she had loved, were equally lost to her; equally dead and buried. And yet she lived still--her busy, active, and not unhappy life. It wasGod's will, all; and it was best. 

Another six months went by, and she still remained in the same place, though talking daily of leaving. They began to go into society again, she and her girls, and to receive visitors now and then: among the rest, David Dalziel, who had preserved his affectionate fidelity even when hewent back to college, and had begun to discover somehow that the directroad from Oxford to every where was through this secluded village. I amafraid Miss Williams was not as alive as she ought to have been to thisfact, and to the other fact that Helen and Janetta were not quitechildren now, but she let the young people be happy, and was happy withthem, after her fashion. Still, hers was less happiness than peace; thedeep peace which a storm-tossed vessel finds when kindly fate has towedit into harbor; with torn sails and broken masts, maybe, but still safe, never needing to go to sea any more. 

She had come to that point in life when we cease to be "afraid of eviltidings, " since nothing is likely to happen to us beyond what hashappened. She told herself that she did not look forward to the answerfrom Shanghai, if indeed any came; nevertheless, she had ascertained whattime the return mail would be likely to bring it. And, almost punctualto the day, a letter arrived with the postmark, "Shanghai. " Not hisletter, nor his handwriting at all. And, besides, it was addressed to"_Mrs. _ Williams. "

A shudder of fear, the only fear which could strike her now--that hemight be dead--made Fortune stand irresolute a moment, then go up to herown room before she opened it. 

"Madam, --I beg to apologize for having read nearly through your letterbefore comprehending that it was not meant for me, but probably foranother Mr. Robert Roy, who left this place not long after I came here, and between whom and myself some confusion arose, till we becameintimate, and discovered that we were most likely distant, very distantcousins. He came from St. Andrews, and was head clerk in a firm here, doing a very good business in tea and silk, until they mixed themselvesup in the opium trade, which Mr. Roy, with one or two more of ourcommunity here, thought so objectionable that at last he threw up hissituation and determined to seek his fortunes in Australia. It was apity, for he was in a good way to get on rapidly, but everybody who knewhim agreed it was just the sort of thing he was sure to do, and somerespected him highly for doing it. He was indeed what we Scotch call'weel respeckit' wherever he went. But he was a reserved man; made fewintimate friends, though those he did make were warmly attached to him. My family were; and though it is now five years since we have heardanything of or from him, we remember him still. "

Five years! The letter dropped from her hands. Lost and found, yetfound and lost. What might not have happened to him in five years? Butshe read on, dry-eyed: women do not weep very much or very easily at herage. 

"I will do my utmost, madam, that your letter shall reach the hands forwhich I am sure it was intended; but that may take some time, my onlyclue to Mr. Roy's whereabouts being the branch house at Melbourne. I cannot think he is dead, because such tidings pass rapidly from one toanother in our colonial communities, and he was too much beloved for hisdeath to excite no concern. 

"I make this long explanation because it strikes me you may be a lady, afriend or relative of Mr. Roy's, concerning whom he employed me to makesome inquiries, only you say so very little--absolutely nothing--ofyourself in your letter, that I can not be at all certain if you are thesame person. She was a governess in a family named Dalziel, living atSt. Andrews. He said he had written to that family repeatedly, but gotno answer, and then asked me, if any thing resulted from my inquiries, towrite to him to the care of our Melbourne house. But no news ever came, and I never wrote to him, for which my wife still blames me exceedingly. She thanks you, dear madam, for the kind things you say about our poorchild, though meant for another person. We have seven boys, but littleBell was our youngest, and our hearts' delight. She died after sixhours' illness. 

"Again begging you to pardon my unconscious offense in reading astranger's letter, and the length of this one, I remain your veryobedient servant, R. Roy

"P. S. --I ought to say that this Mr. Robert Roy seemed between thirty-fiveand forty, tall, dark-haired, walked with a slight stoop. He had, Ibelieve, no near relatives whatever, and I never heard of his having beenmarried. "

Unquestionably Miss Williams did well in retiring to her chamber andlocking the door before she opened the letter. It is a mistake tosuppose that at thirty-five or forty--or what age?--women cease to feel. I once was walking with an old maiden lady, talking of a character in abook. "He reminded me, " she said, "of the very best man I ever knew, whomI saw a good deal of when I was a girl. " And to the natural question, was he alive, she answered, "No; he died while he was still young. " Hervoice kept its ordinary tone, but there came a slight flush on the cheek, a sudden quiver over the whole withered face--she was some years pastseventy--and I felt I could not say another word. 

Nor shall I say a word now of Fortune Williams, when she had read throughand wholly taken in the contents of this letter. 

Life began for her again--life on a new and yet on the old basis; for itwas still waiting, waiting--she seemed to be among those whose lot it isto "stand and wait" all their days. But it was not now in the absolutedarkness and silence which it used to be. She knew that in all humanprobability Robert Roy was alive still some where, and hope never couldwholly die out of the world so long as he was in it. His career, too, ifnot prosperous in worldly things, had been one to make any heart thatloved him content--content and proud. For if he had failed in hisfortunes, was it not from doing what she would most have wished him todo--the right, at all costs? Nor had he quite forgotten her, since evenso late as five years back he had been making inquiries about her. Also, he was then unmarried. 

But human nature is weak, and human hearts are so hungry sometimes. 

"Oh, if he had only loved me, and told me so!" she said, sometimes, aspiteously as fifteen years ago. But the tears which followed were not, as then, a storm of passionate despair--only a quiet sorrowful rain. 

For what could she do? Nothing. Now as ever, her part seemed just tofold her hands and endure. If alive, he might be found some day; but nowshe could not find him--oh, if she could! Had she been the man and hethe woman--nay, had she been still herself, a poor lonely governess, having to earn every crumb of her own bitter bread, yet knowing that heloved her, might not things have been different? Had she belonged tohim, they would never have lost one another. She would have sought him, as Evangeline sought Gabriel, half the world over. 

And little did her two girls imagine, as they called her down stairs thatnight, secretly wondering what important business could make "Auntie"keep tea waiting fully five minutes, and set her after tea to read some"pretty poetry, " especially Longfellow's, which they had a fancyfor--little did they think, those two happy creatures, listening to theirmiddle-aged governess, who read so well that sometimes her voice actuallyfaltered over the line, how there was being transacted under their veryeyes a story which in its "constant anguish of patience" was scarcelyless pathetic than that of Acadia. 

For nearly a year after that letter came the little family of which MissWilliams was the head went on in its innocent quiet way, always planning, yet never making a change, until at last fate drove them to it. 

Neither Helen nor Janetta were very healthy girls, and at last a Londondoctor gave as his absolute fiat that they must cease to live in theirwarm inland village, and migrate, for some years at any rate, to abracing sea-side place. 

Whereupon David Dalziel, who had somehow established himself as the onemasculine adviser of the family, suggested St. Andrews. Bracing enoughit was, at any rate: he remembered the winds used almost cut his noseoff. And it was such a nice place too, so pretty, with such excellentsociety. He was sure the young ladies would find it delightful. DidMiss Williams remember the walk by the shore, and the golfing across theLinks?

"Quite as well as you could have done, at the early age of seven, " shesuggested, smiling. "Why are you so very anxious we should go to live atSt. Andrews?"

The young fellow blushed all over his kindly eager face, and then franklyowned he had a motive. His grandmother's cottage, which she had lefthim, the youngest and her pet always, was now unlet. He meant, perhaps, to go and live at it himself when--he was of age and could afford it; butin the mean time he was a poor solitary bachelor, and--and--

"And you would like me to keep your nest warm for you till you can claimit? You want us for your tenants, eh, Davie?"

"Just that. You've hit it. Couldn't wish better. In fact, I havealready written to my trustees to drive the hardest bargain possible. "

Which was an ingenious modification of the truth, as she afterward found;but evidently the lad had set his heart upon the thing. And she?

At first she shrank back from the plan with a shiver almost of fear. Itwas like having to meet face to face something--some one--long dead. Towalk among the old familiar places, to see the old familiar sea andshore, nay, to live in the very same house, haunted, as houses aresometimes, every room and every nook, with ghosts--yet with such innocentghosts--Could she bear it?

There are some people who have an actual terror of the past--who themoment a thing ceases to be pleasurable fly from it, would willingly buryit out of sight forever. But others have no fear of their harmlessdead--dead hopes, memories, loves--can sit by a grave-side, or lookbehind them at a dim spectral shape, without grief, without dread, onlywith tenderness. This woman could. 

After a long wakeful night, spent in very serious thought for every one'sgood, not excluding her own--since there is a certain point beyond whichone has no right to forget one's self, and perpetual martyrs rarely makevery pleasant heads of families--she said to her girls next morning thatshe thought David Dalziel's brilliant idea had a great deal of sense init; St. Andrews was a very nice place, and the cottage there wouldexactly suit their finances, while the tenure upon which he proposed theyshould hold it (from term to term) would also fit in with their undecidedfuture; because, as all knew, wherever Helen or Janetta married, eachwould take her fortune and go, leaving Miss Williams with her littlelegacy, above want certainly, but not exactly a millionaire. 

These and other points she set before them in her practical fashion, justas if her heart did not leap--sometimes with pleasure, sometimes withpain--at the very thought of St. Andrews, and as if to see herself sitdaily and hourly face to face with her old self, the ghost of her ownyouth, would be a quite easy thing. 

The girls were delighted. They left all to Auntie, as was their habit todo. Burdens naturally fall upon the shoulders fitted for them, and whichseem even to have a faculty for drawing them down there. Miss Williams'snew duties had developed in her a whole range of new qualities, dormantduring her governess life. Nobody knew better than she how to manage ahouse and guide a family. The girls soon felt that Auntie might havebeen a mother all her days, she was so thoroughly motherly and they gaveup every thing into her hands. 

So the whole matter was settled, David rejoicing exceedingly, andconsidering it "jolly fun, " and quite like a bit out of a play, that hisformer governess should come back as his tenant, and inhabit the oldfamiliar cottage. 

"And I'll take a run over to see you as soon as the long vacation begins, just to teach the young ladies golfing. Mr. Roy taught all us boys, youknow; and we'll take that very walk he used to take us, across the Linksand along the sands to the Eden. Wasn't it the river Eden, MissWilliams? I am sure I remember it. I think I am very good atremembering. "

Other people were also "good at remembering. " During the first fewweeks after they settled down at St. Andrews the girls noticed thatAuntie became excessively pale, and was sometimes quite "distrait" andbewildered-looking, which was little wonder, considering all she had todo and arrange. But she got better in time. The cottage was so sweet, the sea so fresh, the whole place so charming. Slowly, Miss Williams'sordinary looks returned--the "good" looks which her girls soenergetically protested she had now, if never before. They never allowedher to confess herself old by caps or shawls, or any of those prettytemporary hindrances to the march of Time. She resisted not; she letthem dress her as they please, in a reasonable way, for she felt theyloved her; and as to her age, why, _she_ knew it, and knew that nothingcould alter it, so what did it matter? She smiled, and tried to look asnice and as young as she could for her girls' sake. 

I suppose there are such things as broken or breaking hearts, even at St. Andrews, but it is certainly not a likely place for them. They havelittle chance against the fresh, exhilarating air, strong as new wine;the wild sea waves, the soothing sands, giving with health of bodywholesomeness of mind. By-and-by the busy world recovered its old faceto Fortune Williams--not the world as she once dreamed of it, but thereal world, as she had fought it through it all these years. 

"I was ever a fighter, so one fight more!" as she read sometimes in the"pretty" poetry her girls were always asking for--read steadily, evenwhen she came to the last verse in that passionate "Prospice:"

 "Till, sudden, the worst turns the best to the brave, The black minute's at end: And the elements rage, the fiend voices that rave Shall dwindle, shall blend, Shall change, shall become first a peace, then a joy, Then a light--then thy breast, O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, And with God be the rest!"

To that life to come, during all the burden and heat of the day (no, theafternoon, a time, faded, yet hot and busy still, which is often a verytrying bit of woman's life) she now began yearningly to look. To meethim again, even in old age, or with death between, was her only desire. Yet she did her duty still, and enjoyed all she could, knowing that oneby one the years were hurrying onward, and the night coming, "in which noman can work. "

Faithful to his promise, about the middle of July David Dalziel appeared, in overflowing spirits, having done very well at college. He was such aboy still, in character and behavior; though--as he carefully informedthe family--now twenty-one and a man, expecting to be treated as such. He was their landlord too, and drew up the agreement in his own name, meaning to be a lawyer, and having enough to live on--something betterthan bread and salt--"till I can earn a fortune, as I certainly mean todo some day. "

And he looked at Janetta, who looked down on the parlor carpet--as youngpeople will. Alas! I fear that the eyes of her anxious friend andgoverness were not half wide enough open to the fact that these youngfolk were no longer boy and girls, and that things might happen--in fact, were almost certain to happen--which had happened to herself in heryouth--making life not quite easy to her, as it seemed to be to these twobright girls. 

Yet they were so bright, and their relations with David Dalziel were sofrank and free--in fact, the young fellow himself was such a thoroughlygood fellow, so very difficult to shut her door against, even if she hadthought of so doing. But she did not. She let him come and go, "miserable bachelor" as he proclaimed himself, with all his kith and kinacross the seas, and cast not a thought to the future, or to the sadnecessity which sometimes occurs to parents and guardians--of shuttingthe stable door _after_ the steed is stolen. 

Especially, as not long after David appeared, there happened a certainthing to all but her, and yet to her it was, for the time being, utterlyoverwhelming. It absorbed all her thoughts into one maddened channel, where they writhed and raved and dashed themselves blindly againstinevitable fate. For the first time in her life this patient woman feltas if endurance were _not_ the right thing; as if wild shrieks of pain, bitter outcries against Providence, would be somehow easier, better:might reach His throne, so that even now He might listen and hear. 

The thing was this. One day, waiting for some one beside the laurel bushat her gate--the old familiar bush, though it had grown and grown tillits branches, which used to drag on the gravel, now covered the pathentirely--she overheard David explaining to Janetta how he and hisbrothers and Mr. Roy had made the wooden letter-box, which actuallyexisted still, though in very ruinous condition. 

"And no wonder, after fifteen years and more. It is fully that old, isn't it Miss Williams? You will have to superannuate it shortly, andreturn to the old original letter-box--my letter-box, which I remember sowell. I do believe I could find it still. "

Kneeling down, he thrust his hand through the thick barricade of leavesinto the very heart of the tree. 

"I've found it; I declare I've found it; the identical hole in the trunkwhere I used to put all my treasures--my 'magpie's nest, ' as they calledit, where I hid every thing I could find. What a mischievous young scampI was!"

"Very, " said Miss Williams, affectionately, laying a gentle hand on hiscurls--"pretty" still, though cropped down to the frightful modernfashion. Secretly she was rather proud of him, this tall young fellow, whom she had had on her lap many a time. 

"Curious! It all comes back to me--even to the very last thing I hidhere, the day before we left, which was a letter. "

"A letter!"--Miss Williams slightly started--"what letter?"

"One I found lying under the laurel bush, quite hidden by its leaves. Itwas all soaked with rain. I dried it in the sun, and then put it in myletter-box, telling nobody, for I meant to deliver it myself at the halldoor with a loud ring--an English postman's ring. Our Scotch one used toblow his horn, you remember?"

"Yes, " said Miss Williams. She was leaning against the fatal bush, paleto the very lips, but her veil was down--nobody saw. "What sort of aletter was it, David? Who was it to? Did you notice the handwriting?"

"Why, I was such a little fellow, " and he looked up in wonder andslight concern, "how could I remember? Some letter that somebody haddropped, perhaps, in taking the rest out of the box. It could notmatter--certainly not now. You would not bring my youthful misdeeds upagainst me, would you?" And he turned up a half-comical, half-pitifulface. 

Fortune's first impulse--what was it? She hardly knew. But her secondwas that safest, easiest thing--now grown into the habit and refuge ofher whole life--silence. "No, it certainly does not matter now. "

A deadly sickness came over her. What if this letter were Robert Roy's, asking her that question which he said no man ought ever to ask a womantwice? And she had never seen it--never answered it. So, of course, hewent away. Her whole life--nay, two whole lives--had been destroyed, andby a mere accident, the aimless mischief of a child's innocent hand. Shecould never prove it, but it might have been so. And, alas! alas! God, the merciful God, had allowed it to be so. 

Which is the worst, to wake up suddenly and find that our life has beenwrecked by our own folly, mistake, or sin, or that it has been done forus either directly by the hand of Providence, or indirectly through someinnocent--nay, possibly not innocent, but intentional--hand? In bothcases the agony is equally sharp--the sharper because irremediable. 

All these thoughts, vivid as lightning, and as rapid, darted through poorFortune's brain during the few moments that she stood with her hand onDavid's shoulder, while he drew from his magpie's nest a heterogeneousmass of rubbish--pebbles, snail shells, bits of glass and china, fragments even of broken toys. 

"Just look there. What ghosts of my childhood, as people would say! Deadand buried, though. " And he laughed merrily--he in the full tide andglory of his youth. 

Fortune Williams looked down on his happy face. This lad that reallyloved her would not have hurt her for the world, and her determinationwas made. He should never know any thing. Nobody should ever know anything. The "dead and buried" of fifteen years ago must be dead andburied forever. 

"David, " she said, "just out of curiosity, put your hand down to the verybottom of that hole, and see if you can fish up the mysterious letter. "

Then she waited, just as one would wait at the edge of some long-closedgrave to see if the dead could possibly be claimed as our dead, even ifbut a handful of unhonored bones. 

No, it was not possible. Nobody could expect it after such a lapse oftime. Something David pulled out--it might be paper, it might be rags. It was too dry to be moss or earth, but no one could have recognized itas a letter. 

"Give it me, " said Miss Williams, holding out her hand. 

David put the little heap of "rubbish" therein. She regarded it amoment, and then scattered it on the gravel--"dust to dust, " as we say inour funeral service. But she said nothing. 

At the moment the young people they were waiting for came, to the otherside of the gate, clubs in hand. David and the two Miss Moseleys had bythis time become perfectly mad for golf, as is the fashion of the place. The proceeded across the Links, Miss Williams accompanying them, as induty bound. But she said she was "rather tired, " and leaving them incharge of another chaperon--if chaperons are ever wanted or needed inthose merry Links of St. Andrews--came home alone. 

Chapter 5

 "Shall sharpest pathos blight us, doing no wrong?"

So writes our greatest living poet, in one of the noblest poems he everpenned. And he speaks truth. The real canker of human existence is notmisery, but sin. 

After the first cruel pang, the bitter wail; after her lost life--and wehave here but one life to lose!--her lost happiness, for she knew nowthat though she might be very peaceful, very content, no real happinessever had come, ever could come to her in this world, except Robert Roy'slove--after this, Fortune sat down, folded her hands, and bowed her headto the waves of sorrow that kept sweeping over her, not for one day ortwo days, but for many days and weeks--the anguish, not of patience, butregret--sharp, stinging, helpless regret. They came rolling in, thoseremorseless billows, just like the long breakers on the sands of St. Andrews. Hopeless to resist, she could only crouch down and let thempass. "All Thy waves have gone over me. "

Of course this is spoken metaphorically. Outwardly, Miss Williamsneither sat still nor folded her hands. She was seen every where asusual, her own proper self, as the world knew it; but underneath all thatwas the self that she knew, and God knew. No one else. No one evercould have known, except Robert Roy, had things been different from whatthey were--from what God had apparently willed them to be. 

A sense of inevitable fate came over her. It was now nearly two yearssince that letter from Mr. Roy of Shanghai, and no more tidings hadreached her. She began to think none ever would reach her now. Sheceased to hope or to fear, but let herself drift on, accepting the smallpale pleasures of every day, and never omitting one of its duties. Oneonly thought remained; which, contrasted with the darkness of all else, often gleamed out as an actual joy. 

If the lost letter really was Robert Roy's--and though she had nopositive proof, she had the strongest conviction, remembering the thickfog of that Tuesday morning, how easily Archy might have dropped it outof his hand, and how, during those days of soaking rain, it might havelain, unobserved by any one, under the laurel branches, till the childpicked it up and hid it as he said--if Robert Roy lad written to her, written in any way, he was at least not faithless. And he might haveloved her then. Afterward, he might have married, or died; she mightnever find him again in this world, or if she found him, he might betotally changed: still, whatever happened, he had loved her. The factremained. No power in earth or heaven could alter it. 

And sometimes, even yet, a half-superstitious feeling came over her thatall this was not for nothing--the impulse which had impelled her to writeto Shanghai, the other impulse, or concatenation of circumstances, whichhad floated her, after so many changes, back to the old place, the oldlife. It looked like chance, but was it? Is any thing chance? Does notour own will, soon or late, accomplish for us what we desire? That is, when we try to reconcile it to the will of God. 

She had accepted His will all these years, seeing no reason for it; oftenfeeling it very hard and cruel, but still accepting it. And now?

I am writing no sensational story. In it are no grand dramatic points;no _Deus ex machina_ appears to make all smooth; every event--if it canboast of aught so large as an event--follows the other in perfectlynatural succession. For I have always noticed that in life there arerarely any startling "effects, " but gradual evolutions. Nothing happensby accident; and, the premises once granted, nothing happens but what wasquite sure to happen, following those premises. We novelists do not"make up" our stories; they make themselves. Nor do human beings inventtheir own lives; they do but use up the materials given to them--somewell, some ill; some wisely, some foolishly; but, in the main, the dictumof the Preacher is not far from the truth, "All things come alike toall. "

A whole winter had passed by, and the spring twilights were beginning tolengthen, tempting Miss Williams and her girls to linger another halfhour before they lit the lamp for the evening. They were doing so, cozily chatting over the fire, after the fashion of a purely femininehousehold, when there was a sudden announcement that a gentleman, withtwo little boys, wanted to see Miss Williams. He declined to give hisname, and said he would not detain her more than a few minutes. 

"Let him come in here, " Fortune was just about to say, when she reflectedthat it might be some law business which concerned her girls, whom shehad grown so tenderly anxious to save from any trouble and protect fromevery care. "No, I will go and speak to him myself. "

She rose and walked quietly into the parlor, already shadowed intotwilight: a neat, compact little person, dressed in soft gray homespun, with a pale pink bow on her throat, and another in her cap--a prettylittle fabric of lace and cambric, which, being now the fashion, hergirls had at last condescended to let her wear. She had on a black silkapron, with pockets, into one of which she had hastily thrust her work, and her thimble was yet on her finger. This was the figure on which theeyes of the gentleman rested as he turned around. 

Miss Williams lifted her eyes inquiringly to his face--a bearded face, thin and dark. 

"I beg your pardon, I have not the pleasure of knowing you; I--"

She suddenly stopped. Something in the height, the turn of the head, thecrisp dark hair, in which were not more than a few threads of gray, whilehers had so many now, reminded her of--someone, the bare thought of whommade her feel dizzy and blind. 

"No, " he said, "I did not expect you would know me; and indeed, until Isaw you, I was not sure you were the right Miss Williams. Possibly youmay remember my name--Roy, Robert Roy. "

Faces alter, manners, gestures; but the one thing which never changes isa voice. Had Fortune heard this one--ay, at her last dying hour, whenall worldly sounds were fading away--she would have recognized it atonce. 

The room being full of shadow, no one could see any thing distinctly; andit was as well. 

In another minute, she had risen, and held out her hand. 

"I am very glad to see you, Mr. Roy. How long have you been in England?Are these your little boys?"

Without answering, he took her hand--a quiet friendly grasp, just as itused to be. And so, without another word, the gulf of fifteen--seventeenyears was overleaped, and Robert Roy and Fortune Williams had met oncemore. 

If anybody had told her when she rose that morning what would happenbefore night, and happen so naturally, too, she would have said it wasimpossible. That, after a very few minutes, she could have sat there, talking to him as to any ordinary acquaintance, seemed incredible, yet itwas truly so. 

"I was in great doubts whether the Miss Williams who, they told me, livedhere was yourself or some other lady; but I thought I would take thechance. Because, were it yourself, I thought, for the sake of old times, you might be willing to advise me concerning my two little boys, whom Ihave brought to St. Andrews for their education. "

"Your sons, are they?"

"No. I am not married. "

There was a pause, and then he told the little fellows to go and look outof the window, while he talked with Miss Williams. He spoke to them in afatherly tone; there was nothing whatever of the young man left in himnow. His voice was sweet, his manner grave, his whole appearanceunquestionably "middle-aged. "

"They are orphans. Their name is Roy, though they are not my relatives, or so distant that it matters nothing. But their father was a very goodfriend of mine, which matters a great deal. He died suddenly, and hiswife soon after, leaving their affairs in great confusion. Hearing this, far up in the Australian bush, where I have been a sheep-farmer for someyears, I came round by Shanghai, but too late to do more than take theseyounger boys and bring them home. The rest of the family are disposedof. These two will be henceforward mine. That is all. "

A very little "all", and wholly about other people; scarcely a word abouthimself. Yet he seemed to think it sufficient, and as if she had nopossible interest in hearing more. 

Cursorily he mentioned having received her letter, which was "friendlyand kind;" that it had followed him to Australia, and then back toShanghai. But his return home seemed to have been entirely withoutreference to it--or to her. 

So she let all pass, and accepted things as they were. It was enough. When a ship-wrecked man sees land--ever so barren a land, ever sodesolate a shore--he does not argue within himself, "Is this my haven?"he simply puts into it, and lets himself be drifted ashore. 

It took but a few minutes more to explain further what Mr. Roy wanted--ahome for his two "poor little fellows. "

"They are so young still--and they have lost their mother. They would dovery well in their classes here, if some kind woman would take them andlook after them. I felt, if the Miss Williams I heard of were really theMiss Williams I used to know, I could trust them to her, more than to anywoman I ever knew. "

"Thank you. " And then she explained that she had already two girls incharge. She could say nothing till she had consulted them. In the meantime--

Just then the bell sounded. The world was going on just as usual--thisstrange, commonplace, busy, regardless world!

"I beg your pardon for intruding on your time so long, " said Mr. Roy, rising. "I will leave you to consider the question, and you will let meknow as soon as you can. I am staying at the hotel here, and shallremain until I can leave my boys settled. Good evening. "

Again she felt the grasp of the hand: that ghostly touch, so vivid indreams for these years, and now a warm living reality. It was too much. She could not bear it. 

"If you would care to stay, " she said--and though it was too dark to seeher, he must have heard the faint tremble in her voice--"our tea isready. Let me introduce you to my girls, and they can make friends withyour little boys. "

The matter was soon settled, and the little party ushered into thebright warm parlor, glittering with all the appendages of that pleasantmeal--essentially feminine--a "hungry" tea. Robert Roy put his hand overhis eyes as if the light dazzled him, and then sat down in the arm-chairwhich Miss Williams brought forward, turning as he did so to look up ather--right in her face--with his grave, soft, earnest eyes. 

"Thank you. How like that was to your old ways! How very little you arechanged!"

This was the only reference he made, in the slightest degree, to formertimes. 

And she?

She went out of the room, ostensibly to get a pot of guava jelly for theboys--found it after some search, and then sat down. 

Only in her store closet, with her house-keeping things all about her. But it was a quiet place, and the door was shut. 

There is, in one of those infinitely pathetic Old Testament stories, asentence--"And he sought where to weep: and he entered into his chamberand wept there. "

She did not weep, this woman, not a young woman now: she only triedduring her few minutes of solitude to gather up her thoughts, to realizewhat had happened to her, and who it was that sat in the next room--underher roof--at her very fireside. Then she clasped her hands with a suddensob, wild as any of the emotions of her girlhood. 

"Oh, my love, my love, the love of all my life! Thank God!"

The evening passed, not very merrily, but peacefully; the girls, who hadheard a good deal of Mr. Roy from David Dalziel, doing their best to becourteous to him, and to amuse his shy little boys. He did not staylong, evidently having a morbid dread of "intruding, " and his manner wasexceedingly reserved, almost awkward sometimes, of which he seemedpainfully conscious, apologizing for being "unaccustomed to civilizationand to ladies' society, " having during his life in the bush sometimespassed months at a time without ever seeing a woman's face. 

"And women are your only civilizers, " said he. "That is why I wish mymotherless lads to be taken into this household of yours, Miss Williams, which looks so--so comfortable, " and he glanced round the pretty parlorwith something very like a sigh. "I hope you will consider the matter, and let me know as soon as you have made up your mind. "

"Which I will do very soon, " she answered. 

"Yes, I know you will. And your decision once made, you never change. "

"Very seldom. I am not one of those who are 'given to change. '"

"Nor I. "

He stood a moment, lingering in the pleasant, lightsome warmth, as ifloath to quit it, then took his little boys in either hand and went away. There was a grand consultation that night, for Miss Williams never didany thing without speaking to her girls; but still it was merely nominal. They always left the decision to her. And her heart yearned over the twolittle Roys, orphans, yet children still; while Helen and Janetta weregrowing up and needing very little from her except a general motherlysupervision. Besides, _he_ asked it. He had said distinctly that she wasthe only woman to whom he could thoroughly trust his boys. So--she tookthem. 

After a few days the new state of things grew so familiar that it seemedas if it had lasted for months, the young Roys going to and fro to theirclasses and their golf-playing, just as the young Dalziels had done; andMr. Roy coming about the house, almost daily, exactly as Robert Roy hadused to do of old. Sometimes it was to Fortune Williams the strangestreflex of former times; only--with a difference. 

Unquestionably he was very much changed. In outward appearance more eventhan the time accounted for. No man can knock about the world, indifferent lands and climates, for seventeen years, without bearingthe marks of it. Though still under fifty, he had all the air of an"elderly" man, and had grown a little "peculiar" in his ways, his modesof thought and speech--except that he spoke so very little. Heaccounted for this by his long lonely life in Australia, which hadproduced, he said, an almost unconquerable habit of silence. Altogether, he was far more of an old bachelor than she was of an old maid, andFortune felt this: felt, too, that in spite of her gray hairs she was inreality quite as young as he--nay, sometimes younger; for her innocent, simple, shut-up life had kept her young. 

And he, what had his life been, in so far as he gradually betrayed it?Restless, struggling; a perpetual battle with the world; having to holdhis own, and fight his way inch by inch--he who was naturally a bornstudent, to whom the whirl of a business career was especially obnoxious. What had made him choose it? Once chosen, probably he could not helphimself; besides, he was not one to put his shoulder to the wheel andthen draw back. Evidently, with the grain or against the grain, he hadgone on with it; this sad, strange, wandering life, until he had "madehis fortune, " for he told her so. But he said no more; whether he meantto stay at home and spend it, or go out again to the antipodes (and hespoke of those far lands without any distaste, even with a lingeringkindliness, for indeed he seemed to have no unkindly thought of any placeor person in all the world), his friend did not know. 

His friend. That was the word. No other. After her first outburst ofuncontrollable emotion, to call Robert Roy her "love, " even in fancy, orto expect that he would deport himself in any lover-like way, becameridiculous, pathetically ridiculous. She was sure of that. Evidently noidea of the kind entered his mind. She was Miss Williams, and he was Mr. Roy--two middle-aged people, each with their different responsibilities, their altogether separate lives; and, hard as her own had been, it seemedas if his had been the harder of the two--ay, though he was now a richman, and she still little better than a poor governess. 

She did not think very much of worldly things, but still she was aware ofthis fact--that he was rich and she was poor. She did not suffer herselfto dwell upon it, but the consciousness was there, sustained with acertain feeling called "proper pride. " The conviction was forced uponher in the very first days of Mr. Roy's return--that to go back to thedays of their youth was as impossible as to find primroses in September. 

If, indeed, there were any thing to go back to. Sometimes she felt, ifshe could only have found out that, all the rest would be easy, painless. If she could only have said to him, "Did you write me the letter youpromised? Did you _ever_ love me"? But that one question was, of course, utterly impossible. He made no reference whatever to old things, butseemed resolved to take up the present a very peaceful and happy presentit soon grew to be--just as if there were no past at all. So perforcedid she. 

But, as I think I have said once before, human nature is weak, and therewere days when the leaves were budding, and the birds singing in thetrees, when the sun was shining and the waves rolling in upon the sands, just as they rolled in that morning over those two lines of foot-marks, which might have walked together through life; and who knows what mutualstrength, help, and comfort this might have proved to both?--then it was, for one at least, rather hard. 

Especially when, bit by bit, strange ghostly fragments of his old selfbegan to re-appear in Robert Roy: his keen delight in nature, his loveof botanical or geological excursions. Often he would go wandering downthe familiar shore for hours in search of marine animals for the girls'aquarium, and then would come and sit down at their tea-table, reading ortalking, so like the Robert Roy of old that one of the little group, whoalways crept in the background, felt dizzy and strange, as if all herlater years had been a dream, and she were living her youth over again, only with the difference aforesaid: a difference sharp as that betweendeath and life--yet with something of the peace of death in it. 

Sometimes, when they met at the innocent little tea parties which St. Andrews began to give--for of course in that small community every bodyknew every body, and all their affairs to boot, often a good deal betterthan they did themselves, so that there was great excitement and no endof speculation over Mr. Roy--sometimes meeting, as they were sure to do, and walking home together, with the moonlight shining down the emptystreets, and the stars out by myriads over the silent distant sea, whilethe nearer tide came washing in upon the sands--all was so like, sofrightfully like, old times that it was very sore to bear. 

But, as I have said, Miss Williams was Miss Williams, and Mr. Roy Mr. Roy, and there were her two girls always besides them; also his two boys, who soon took to "Auntie" as naturally as if they were really hers, orshe theirs. 

"I think they had better call you so, as the others do, " said Mr. Roy oneday. "Are these young ladies really related to you?"

"No; but I promised their father on his death-bed to take charge of them. That is all. "

"He is dead, then. Was he a great friend of yours?"

She felt the blood flashing all over her face, but she answered, steadily: "Not a very intimate friend, but I respected him exceedingly. He was a good man. His daughters had a heavy loss when he died, and Iam glad to be a comfort to them so long as they need me. "

"I have no doubt of it. "

This was the only question he ever asked her concerning her past life, though, by slow degrees, he told her a good deal of his own. Enough tomake her quite certain, even if her keen feminine instinct had notalready divined the fact, that whatever there might have been in it ofsuffering, there was nothing in the smallest degree either to be ashamedof or to hide. What Robert Roy of Shanghai had written about him hadcontinued true. As he said one day to her, "We never stand still. Weeither grow better or worse. You have not grown worse. "

Nor had he. All that was good in him had developed, all his littlefaults had toned down. The Robert Roy of today was slightly differentfrom, but in no wise inferior to, the Robert Roy of her youth. She sawit, and rejoiced in the seeing. 

What he saw in her she could not tell. He seemed determined to restwholly in the present, and take out of it all the peace and pleasantnessthat he could. In the old days, when the Dalziel boys were naughty, andMrs. Dalziel tiresome; and work was hard, and holidays were few, and lifewas altogether the rough road that it often seems to the young, he hadonce called her "Pleasantness and Peace. " He never said so now; butsometimes he looked it. 

Many an evening he came and sat by her fireside, in the arm-chair, whichseemed by right to have devolved upon him; never staying very long, forhe was still nervously sensitive about being "in the way, " but makinghimself and them all very cheerful and happy while he did stay. Onlysometimes, when Fortune's eyes stole to his face--not a young man'sface now--she fancied she could trace, besides the wrinkles, a sadness, approaching to hardness, that never used to be. But again, wheninterested in some book or other (he said it was delicious to take toreading again, after the long fast of years), he would look around to herfor sympathy, or utter one of his dry drolleries, the old likeness, theold manner and tone would come back so vividly that she started, hardlyknowing whether the feeling it gave her was pleasure or pain. 

But beneath both, lying so deep down that neither he nor any one couldever suspect its presence, was something else. Can many waters quenchlove? Can the deep sea drown it? What years of silence can wither it?What frost of age can freeze it down? God only knows. 

Hers was not like a girl's love. Those two girls sitting by her dayafter day would have smiled at it, and at its object. Between themselvesthey considered Mr. Roy somewhat of an "old fogy;" were very glad to makeuse of him now and then, in the great dearth of gentlemen at St. Andrews, and equally glad afterward to turn him over to Auntie, who was alwayskind to him. Auntie was so kind to every body. 

Kind? Of course she was, and above all when he looked worn and tired. He did so sometimes: as if life had ceased to be all pleasure, and theconstant mirth of these young folks was just a little too much for him. Then she ingeniously used to save him from it and them for a while. Theynever knew--there was no need for them to know--how tenfold deeper thanall the passion of youth is the tenderness with which a woman cleaves tothe man she loves when she sees him growing old. 

Thus the days went by till Easter came, announced by the suddenapparition, one evening, of David Dalziel. 

That young man, when, the very first day of his holidays, he walked inupon his friends at St. Andrews, and found sitting at their tea-table astrange gentleman, did not like it at all--scarcely even when he foundout that the intruder was his old friend, Mr. Roy. 

"And you never told me a word about this, " said he, reproachfully, toMiss Williams. "Indeed, you have not written to me for weeks; you haveforgotten all about me. "

She winced at the accusation, for it was true. Beyond her daily domesticlife, which she still carefully fulfilled, she had in truth forgottenevery thing. Outside people were ceasing to affect her at all. What _he_liked, what _he_ wanted to do, day by day--whether he looked ill or well, happy or unhappy, only he rarely looked either--this was slowly growingto be once more her whole world. With a sting of compunction, andanother, half of fear, save that there was nothing to dread, nothing thatcould affect any body beyond herself--Miss Williams roused herself togive young Dalziel an especially hearty welcome, and to make his littlevisit as happy as possible. 

Small need of that; he was bent on taking all things pleasantly. Comingnow near the end of a very creditable college career, being of age andindependent, with the cozy little fortune that his old grandmother hadleft him, the young fellow was disposed to see every thing _couleur derose_, and this feeling communicated itself to all his friends. 

It was a pleasant time. Often in years to come did that little knot offriends, old and young, look back upon it as upon one of those rarebright bits in life when the outside current of things moves smoothly on, while underneath it there may or may not be, but generally there is, asecret or two which turns the most trivial events into sweet and dearremembrances forever. 

David's days being few enough, they took pains not to lose one, butplanned excursions here, there, and every where--to Dundee, to Perth, toElie, to Balcarras--all together, children, young folks, and elders: thatadmirable _melange_ which generally makes such expeditions "go off" well. Theirs did, especially the last one, to the old house of Balcarras, wherethey got admission to the lovely quaint garden, and Janetta sang "AuldRobin Gray" on the spot where it was written. 

She had a sweet voice, and there seemed to have come into it a pathoswhich Fortune had never remarked before. The touching, ever old, evernew story made the young people quite quiet for a few minutes; and thenthey all wandered away together, Helen promising to look after thetwo wild young Roys, to see that they did not kill themselves in someunforeseen way, as, aided and abetted by David and Janetta, they went ona scramble up Balcarras Hill. 

"Will you go too?" said Fortune to Robert Roy. "I have the provisions tosee to; besides, I can not scramble as well as the rest. I am not quiteso young as I used to be. "

"Nor I, " he answered, as, taking her basket, he walked silently on besideher. 

It was a curious feeling, and all to come out of a foolish song; but ifever she felt thankful to God from the bottom of her heart that she hadsaid "No, " at once and decisively, to the good man who slept at peacebeneath the church-yard elms, it was at that moment. But the feelingand the moment passed by immediately. Mr. Roy took up the thread ofconversation where he had left it off--it was some bookish or ethicalargument, such as he would go on with for hours; so she listened to himin silence. They walked on, the larks singing and the primroses blowing. All the world was saying to itself, "I am young; I am happy;" but shesaid nothing at all. 

People grow used to pain; it dies down at intervals, and becomes quitebearable, especially when no one see it or guesses at it. 

They had a very merry picnic on the hilltop, enjoying those mundaneconsolations of food and drink which Auntie was expected always to haveforth-coming, and which those young people did by no means despise, norMr. Roy neither. He made himself so very pleasant with them all, lookingthoroughly happy, and baring his head to the spring breeze with theeagerness of a boy. 

"Oh, this is delicious! It makes me feel young again. There's nothinglike home. One thing I am determined upon: I will never quit bonnieScotland more. "

It was the first clear intimation he had given of his intentionsregarding the future, but it thrilled her with measureless content. Ifonly he would not go abroad again, if she might have him within reach forthe rest of her days--able to see him, to talk to him, to know where hewas and what he was doing, instead of being cut off from him by thoseterrible dividing seas--it was enough! Nothing could be so bitter aswhat had been; and whatever was the mystery of their youth, which it wasimpossible to unravel now--whether he had ever loved, or loved her andcrushed it down and forgotten it, or only felt very kindly and cordiallyto her, as he did now, the past was--well, only the past!--and thefuture lay still before her, not unsweet. When we are young, we insiston having every thing or nothing; when we are older, we learn that "everything" is an impossible and "nothing" a somewhat bitter word. We areable to stoop meekly and pick up the fragments of the children's bread, without feeling ourselves to be altogether "dogs". 

Fortune went home that night with a not unhappy, almost a satisfied, heart. She sat back in the carriage, close beside that other heart whichshe believed to be the truest in all the world, though it had never beenhers. There was a tremendous clatter of talking and laughing and fun ofall sorts, between David Dalziel and the little Roys on the box, and theMisses Moseley sitting just below them, as they had insisted doing, nodoubt finding the other two members of the party a little "slow. "

Nevertheless Mr. Roy and Miss Williams took their part in laughing withtheir young people, and trying to keep them in order; though after awhile both relapsed into silence. One did at least, for it had been along day and she was tired, being, as she had said, "not so young as shehad been. " But if any of these lively young people had asked her thequestion whether she was happy, or at least contented, she would havenever hesitated about her reply. Young, gay, and prosperous as theywere, I doubt if Fortune Williams would have changed lots with any one ofthem all. 

Chapter 6

As it befell, that day at Balcarras was the last of the bright days, inevery sense, for the time being. Wet weather set in, as even the mostpartial witness must allow does occasionally happen in Scotland, and thedomestic barometer seemed to go down accordingly. The girls grumbled atbeing kept in-doors, and would willingly have gone out golfing underumbrellas, but Auntie was remorseless. They were delicate girls at best, so that her watch over them was never-ceasing, and her patienceinexhaustible. 

David Dalziel also was in a very trouble-some mood, quite unusual forhim. He came and went, complained bitterly that the girls were notallowed to go out with him; abused the place, the climate, and did allthose sort of bearish things which young gentlemen are sometimes in thehabit of doing, when--when that wicked little boy whom they read about atschool and college makes himself known to them as a pleasant, orunpleasant, reality. 

Miss Williams, whom, I am afraid, was far too simple a woman for the newgeneration, which has become so extraordinarily wise and wide-awake, opened her eyes and wondered why David was so unlike his usual self. Mr. Roy, too, to whom he behaved worse than to any one else, only the elderman quietly ignored it all, and was very patient and gentle with therestless, ill-tempered boy--Mr. Roy even remarked that he thought Davidwould be happier at his work again; idling was a bad thing for youngfellows at his age, or any age. 

At last it came out, the bitterness which rankled in the poor lad'sbreast; with another secret, which, foolish woman that she was, MissWilliams had never in the smallest degree suspected. Very odd that shehad not, but so it was. We all find it difficult to realize the momentwhen our children cease to be children. Still more difficult is it forvery serious and earnest natures to recognize that there are othernatures who take things in a totally different way, and yet it may be theright and natural way for them. Such is the fact; we must learn it, andthe sooner we learn it, the better. 

One day, when the rain had a little abated, David appeared, greatlydisappointed to find the girls had gone out, down to the West Sands withMr. Roy. 

"Always Mr. Roy! I am sick of his very name, " muttered David, and thencaught Miss Williams by the dress as she was rising. She had a gentlebut rather dignified way with her of repressing bad manners in youngpeople, either by perfect silence, or by putting the door between herand them. "Don't go! One never can get a quiet word with you, you arealways so preternaturally busy. "

It was true. To be always busy was her only shield against--certainthings which the young man was never likely to know, and would notunderstand if he did know. 

"Do sit down, if you ever can sit down, for a minute, " said he, imploringly; "I want to speak to you seriously, very seriously. "

She sat down, a little uneasy. The young fellow was such a good fellow;and yet he might have got into a scrape of some sort. Debt, perhaps, for he was a trifle extravagant; but then life had been all roses tohim. He had never known a want since he was born. 

"Speak, then, David; I am listening. Nothing very wrong, I hope!" saidshe, with a smile. 

"Nothing at all wrong, only--When is Mr. Roy going away"?

The question was so unexpected that she felt her color changing a little;not much, she was too old for that. 

"Mr. Roy leaving St. Andrews, you mean? How can I tell? He has nevertold me. Why do you ask?"

"Because until he gone, I stay, " said the young man, doggedly. "I'm notgoing back to Oxford leaving him master of the field. I have stood himas long as I possibly can, and I'll not stand him any longer. "

"David! you forget yourself. "

"There--now you are offended; I know you are, when you draw yourself upin that way, my dear little auntie. But just hear me. You are such aninnocent woman, you don't know the world as men do. Can't you see--no, of course you can't--that very soon all St. Andrews will be talking aboutyou?"

"About me?"

"Not about you exactly, but about the family. A single man--a marryingman, as all the world says he is, or ought to be, with his money--can notgo in and out, like a tame cat, in a household of women, without having, or being supposed to have--ahem!--intentions. I assure you"--and heswung himself on the arm of her chair, and looked into her face with anangry earnestness quite unmistakable--"I assure you, I never go into theclub without being asked, twenty times a day, which of the Miss MoseleysMr. Roy is going to marry. "

"Which of the Miss Moseleys Mr. Roy is going to marry!"

She repeated the words, as if to gain time and to be certain she heardthem rightly. No fear of her blushing now; every pulse in her heartstood dead still; and then she nerved herself to meet the necessity ofthe occasion. 

"David, you surely do not consider what you are saying. This is a mostextraordinary idea. "

"It is a most extraordinary idea; in fact, I call it ridiculous, monstrous: an old battered fellow like him, who has knocked about theworld, Heaven knows where, all these years, to come home, and, because hehas got a lot of money, think to go and marry one of these nice, prettygirls. They wouldn't have him, I believe that; but nobody else believesit; and every body seems to think it the most natural thing possible. What do you say?"

"I?"

"Surely you don't think it right, or even possible? But, Auntie, itmight turn out a rather awkward affair, and you ought to take my advice, and stop it in time. "

"How?"

"Why, by stepping him out of the house. You and he are great friends: ifhe had any notion of marrying, I suppose he would mention it to you--heought. It would be a cowardly trick to come and steal one of yourchickens from under your wing. Wouldn't it? Do say something, insteadof merely echoing what I say. It really is a serious matter, though youdon't think so. "

"Yes, I do think so, " said Miss Williams, at last; "and I would stop itif I thought I had any right. But Mr. Roy is quite able to manage hisown affairs; and he is not so very old--not more than five-and-twentyyears older than--Helen. "

"Bother Helen! I beg her pardon, she is a dear good girl. But do youthink any man would look at Helen when there was Janetta?"

It was out now, out with a burning blush over all the lad's honestface, and the sudden crick-crack of a pretty Indian paper-cutter heunfortunately was twiddling in his fingers. Miss Williams must have beenblind indeed not to have guessed the state of the case. 

"What! Janetta? Oh, David!" was all she said. 

He nodded. "Yes, that's it, just it. I thought you must have found itout long ago: though I kept myself to myself pretty close, still youmight have guessed. "

"I never did. I had not the remotest idea. Oh, how remiss I have been!It is all my fault. "

"Excuse me, I can not see that it is any body's fault, or any body'smisfortune, either, " said the young fellow, with a not unbecoming pride. "I hope I should not be a bad husband to any girl, when it comes to that. But it has not come; I have never said a single word to her. I wanted tobe quite clear of Oxford, and in a way to win my own position first. Andreally we are so very jolly together as it is. What are you smilingfor?"

She could not help it. There was something so funny in the whole affair. They seemed such babies, playing at love; and their love-making, if suchit was, had been carried on in such an exceedingly open and lively way, not a bit of tragedy about it, rather genteel comedy, bordering on farce. It was such a contrast to--certain other love stories that she had known, quite buried out of sight now. 

Gentle "Auntie"--the grave maiden lady, the old hen with all these youngducklings who would take to the water so soon--held out her hand to theimpetuous David. 

"I don't know what to say to you, my boy: you really are little more thana boy, and to be taking upon yourself the responsibilities of life sosoon! Still, I am glad you have said nothing to her about it yet. She isa mere child, only eighteen. "

"Quite old enough to marry, and to marry Mr. Roy even, the St. Andrewsfolks think. But I won't stand it. I won't tamely sit by and see hersacrificed. He might persuade her; he has a very winning way with himsometimes. Auntie, I have not spoken, but I won't promise not to speak. It is all very well for you; you are old, and your blood runs cold, asyou said to us one day--no, I don't mean that; you are a real brickstill, and you'll never be old to us, but you are not in love, and youcan't understand what it is to be a young fellow like me to see an oldfellow like Roy coming in and just walking over the course. But hesha'nt do it! Long ago, when I was quite a lad, I made up my mind toget her; and get her I will, spite of Mr. Roy or any body. "

Fortune was touched. That strong will which she too had had, able, likefaith, to "remove mountains, " sympathized involuntarily with the lad. Itwas just what she would have said and done, had she been a man and loveda woman. She gave David's hand a warm clasp, which he returned. 

"Forgive me, " said he, affectionately. "I did not mean to bother you;but as things stand, the matter is better out than in. I hateunderhandedness. I may have made an awful fool of myself, but at least Ihave not made a fool of her. I have been as careful as possible not tocompromise her in any way; for I know how people do talk, and a man hasno right to let the girl he loves be talked about. The more he lovesher, the more he ought to take care of her. Don't you think so?"

"Yes. "

"I'd cut myself up into little pieces for Janetta's sake, " he went on, "and I'd do a deal for Helen too, the sisters are so fond of one another. She shall always have a home with us, when we are married. "

"Then, " said Miss Williams, hardly able again to resist a smile, "you arequite certain you will be married? You have no doubt about her caringfor you?"

David pulled his whiskers, not very voluminous yet, looked conscious, andyet humble. 

"Well, I don't exactly say that. I know I'm not half good enough forher. Still, I thought, when I had taken my degree and fairly settledmyself at the bar, I'd try. I have a tolerably good income of my owntoo, though of course I am not as well off as that confounded Roy. Therehe is at this minute meandering up and down the West Sands with those twogirls, setting every body's tongue going! I can't stand it. I declareto you I won't stand it another day. "

"Stop a moment, " and she caught hold of David as he started up. "Whatare you going to do?"

"I don't know and I don't care, only I won't have my girl talkedabout--my pretty, merry, innocent girl. He ought to know better, ashrewd old fellow like him. It is silly, selfish, mean. "

This was more than Miss Williams could bear. She stood up, pale to thelips, but speaking strongly, almost fiercely:

"You ought to know better, David Dalziel. You ought to know that Mr. Royhad not an atom of selfishness or meanness in him--that he would be thelast man in the world to compromise any girl. If he chooses to marryJanetta, or any one else, he has a perfect right to do it, and I for onewill not try to hinder him. "

"Then you will not stand by me any more?"

"Not if you are blind and unfair. You may die of love, though I don'tthink you will; people don't do it nowadays" (there was a slightly bitterjar in the voice): "but love ought to make you all the more honorable, clear-sighted, and just. And as to Mr. Roy--"

She might have talked to the winds, for David was not listening. He hadheard the click of the garden gate, and turned round with blazing eyes. 

"There he is again! I can't stand it, Miss Williams. I give you fairwarning I can't stand it. He has walked home with them, and is waitingabout at the laurel bush, mooning after them. Oh, hang him!"

Before she had time to speak the young man was gone. But she had no fearof any very tragic consequences when she saw the whole party standingtogether--David talking to Janetta, Mr. Roy to Helen, who looked sofresh, so young, so pretty, almost as pretty as Janetta. Nor did Mr. Roy, pleased and animated, look so very old. 

That strange clear-sightedness, that absolute justice, of which Fortunehad just spoken, were qualities she herself possessed to a remarkable, almost a painful, degree. She could not deceive herself, even if shetried. The more cruel the sight, the clearer she saw it; even as now sheperceived a certain naturalness in the fact that a middle-aged man sooften chooses a young girl in preference to those of his own generation, for she brings him that which he has not; she reminds him of what he usedto have; she is to him like the freshness of spring, the warmth ofsummer, in his cheerless autumn days. Sometimes these marriages are notunhappy--far from it; and Robert Roy might ere long make such a marriage. Despite poor David's jealous contempt, he was neither old nor ugly, andthen he was rich. 

The thing, either as regarded Helen, or some other girl of Helen'sstanding, appeared more than possible--probable; and if so, what then?

Fortune looked out once, and saw that the little group at the laurel bushwere still talking; then she slipped up stairs into her own room andbolted the door. 

The first thing that she did was to go straight up and look at her ownface in the glass--her poor old face, which had never been beautiful, which she had never wished beautiful, except that it might be pleasantin one man's eyes. Sweet it was still, but the sweetness lay in itsexpression, pure and placid, and innocent as a young girl's. But she sawnot that; she saw only its lost youth, its faded bloom. She covered itover with both her hands, as if she would fain bury it out of sight;knelt down by her bedside, and prayed. 

"Mr. Roy is waiting below ma'am--has been waiting some time; but he saysif you are busy he will not disturb you; he will come to-morrow instead. "

"Tell him I shall be very glad to see him to-morrow. "

She spoke through the locked door, too feeble to rise and open it; andthen lying down on her bed and turning her face to the wall, from sheerexhaustion fell fast asleep. 

People dream strangely sometimes. The dream she dreamt was soinexpressibly soothing and peaceful, so entirely out of keeping with thereality of things, that it almost seemed to have been what in ancienttimes would be called a vision. 

First, she thought that she and Robert Roy were little children--meregirl and boy together, as they might have been from the few years'difference in their ages--running hand in hand about the sands of St. Andrews, and so fond of one another--so very fond! With that innocentlove a big boy often has for a little girl, and a little girl returnswith the tenderest fidelity. So she did; and she was so happy--they wereboth so happy. In the second part of the dream she was happy still, butsomehow she knew she was dead--had been dead and in paradise for a longtime, and was waiting for him to come there. He was coming now; she felthim coming, and held out her hands, but he took and clasped her in hisarms; and she heard a voice saying those mysterious words: "In heaventhey neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels ofGod. "

It was very strange, all was very strange, but it comforted her. Sherose up, and in the twilight of the soft spring evening she washed herface and combed her hair, and went down, like King David after his childwas dead, to "eat bread. "

Her young people were not there. They had gone out again; she heard, with Mr. Dalziel, not Mr. Roy, who had sat reading in the parlor alonefor upward of an hour. They were supposed to be golfing, but they staidout till long after it was possible to see balls or holes; and MissWilliams was beginning to be a little uneasy, when they all three walkedin, David and Janetta with a rather sheepish air, and Helen beaming allover with mysterious delight. 

How the young man had managed it--to propose to two sisters at once, atany rate to make love to one sister while the other was by--remainedamong the wonderful feats which David Dalziel, who had not too small anopinion of himself, was always ready for, and generally succeeded in; andif he did wear his heart somewhat "on his sleeve, " why, it was a veryhonest heart, and they must have been ill-natured "daws" indeed who tookpleasure in "pecking at it. "

"Wish me joy, Auntie!" he cried, coming forward, beaming all over, theinstant the girls had disappeared to take their hats off. "I've been andgone and done it, and it's all right. I didn't intend it just yet, buthe drove me to it, for which I'm rather obliged to him. He can't get hernow. Janetta's mine!"

There was a boyish triumph in his air; in fact, his whole conduct wasexceedingly juvenile, but so simple, frank, and sincere as to be quiteirresistible. 

I fear Miss Williams was a very weak-minded woman, or would be soconsidered by a great part of the world--the exceedingly wise and prudentand worldly-minded "world. " Here were two young people, one twenty-two, the other eighteen, with--it could hardly be said "not a half-penny, "but still a very small quantity of half-pennies, between them--and theyhad not only fallen in love, but engaged themselves to married! She oughtto have been horrified, to have severely reproached them for theirimprudence, used all her influence and, if needs be, her authority, tostop the whole thing; advising David not to bind himself to any girl tillhe was much older, and his prospects secured; and reasoning with Janettaon the extreme folly of a long engagement, and how very much better itwould be for her to pause, and make some "good" marriage with a man ofwealth and position, who could keep her comfortably. 

All this, no doubt, was what a prudent and far-seeing mother or friendought to have said and done. Miss Williams did no such thing, and saidnot a single word. She only kissed her "children"--Helen too, whoseinnocent delight was the prettiest thing to behold--then sat down andmade tea for them all, as if nothing had happened. 

But such events do not happen without making a slight stir in a family, especially such a quiet family as that at the cottage. Besides, thelovers were too childishly happy to be at all reticent over theirfelicity. Before David was turned away that night to the hotel which heand Mr. Roy both inhabited, every body in the house knew quite well thatMr. Dalziel and Miss Janetta were to be married. 

And every body had of course suspected it long ago, and was not in theleast surprised, so that the mistress of the household herself was halfashamed to confess how very much surprised _she_ had been. However, asevery body seemed delighted, for most people have a "sneaking kindness"toward young lovers, she kept her own counsel; smiled blandly over herold cook's half-pathetic congratulations to the young couple, who were"like the young bears, with all their troubles before them, " and laughedat the sympathetic forebodings of the girls' faithful maid, a ratherelderly person, who was supposed to have been once "disappointed, " andwho "hoped Mr. Dalziel was not too young to know his own mind. " Still, in spite of all, the family were very much delighted, and not a littleproud. 

David walked in, master of the position now, directly after breakfast, and took the sisters out for a walk, both of them, declaring he was asmuch encumbered as if he were going to marry two young ladies at once, but bearing his lot with great equanimity. His love-making indeed was soextraordinarily open and undisguised that it did not much matter who wasby. And Helen was of that sweet negative nature that seemed made for theexpress purpose of playing "gooseberry. "

Directly they had departed, Mr. Roy came in. 

He might have been a far less acute observer than he was not to detect atonce that "something had happened" in the little family. Miss Williamskept him waiting several minutes, and when she did come in her mannerwas nervous and agitated. They spoke about the weather and one or twotrivial things, but more than once Fortune felt him looking at her withthat keen, kindly observation which had been sometimes, during all theseweeks now running into months, of almost daily meeting, and of theclosest intimacy--a very difficult thing to bear. 

He was exceedingly kind to her always; there was no question of that. Without making any show of it, he seemed always to know where she wasand what she was doing. Nothing ever lessened his silent care of her. If ever she wanted help, there he was to give it. And in all theirexcursions she had a quiet conviction that whoever forgot her or hercomfort, he never would. But then it was his way. Some men have eyesand ears for only one woman, and that merely while they happen to be inlove with her; whereas Robert Roy was courteous and considerate to everywoman, even as he was kind to every weak or helpless creature thatcrossed his path. 

Evidently he perceived that all was not right; and, though he saidnothing, there was a tenderness in his manner which went to her heart. 

"You are not looking well to-day; should you not go out?" he said. "Imet all your young people walking off to the sands: they seemedextraordinarily happy. "

Fortune was much perplexed. She did not like not to tell him thenews--him, who had so completely established himself as a friend of thefamily. And yet to tell him was not exactly her place; besides, he mightnot care to hear. Old maid as she was, or thought herself, Miss Williamsknew enough of men not to fall into the feminine error of fancying theyfeel as we do--that their world is our world, and their interest ourinterest. To most men, a leader in the _Times_, an article in the_Quarterly_, or a fall in the money market is of far more importance thanany love affair in the world, unless it happens to be their own. 

Why should I tell him? she thought, convinced that he noticed the anxietyin her eyes, the weariness at her heart. She had passed an almostsleepless night, pondering over the affairs of these young people, whonever thought of any thing beyond their own new-born happiness. Andshe had perplexed herself with wondering whether in consenting to thisengagement she was really doing her duty by her girls, who had no one buther, and whom she was so tender of, for their dead father's sake. Butwhat good was it to say any thing? She must bear her own burden. Andyet--

Robert Roy looked at her with his kind, half-amused smile. 

"You had better tell me all about it; for, indeed, I know already. "

"What! did you guess it?"

"Perhaps. But Dalziel came to my room last night and poured outeverything. He is a candid youth. Well, and am I to congratulate?"

Greatly relieved, Fortune looked up. 

"That's right, " he said; "I like to see you smile. A minute or two agoyou seemed as if you had the cares of all the world on your shoulders. No, that is not exactly the truth. Always meet the truth face to face, and don't be frightened by it. "

Ah, no. If she had had that strong heart to lean on, that tender hand tohelp her through the world, she never would have been "frightened" at anything. 

"I know I am very foolish, " she said; "but there are many things whichthese children of mine don't see, and I can't help seeing. "

"Certainly; they are young, and we are--well, never mind. Sit down here, and let you and me talk the matter quietly over. On the whole, are youglad or sorry?"

"Both, I think. David is able to take care of himself; but poor littleJanetta--my Janetta--what if he should bring her to poverty? He is alittle reckless about money, and has only a very small certain income. Worse; suppose being so young, he should by-and-by get tired of her, andneglect her, and break her heart?"

"Or twenty other things which may happen, or may not, and of which theymust take the chance, like their neighbors. You do not believe very muchin men, I see, and perhaps you are right. We are a bad lot--a bad lot. But David Dalziel is as good as most of us, that I can assure you. "

She could hardly tell whether he was in jest or earnest; but this wascertain, he meant to cheer and comfort her, and she took the comfort, and was thankful. 

"Now to the point, " continued Mr. Roy. "You feel that, in a worldlypoint of view, these two have done a very foolish thing, and you haveaided and abetted them in doing it?"

"Not so, " she cried, laughing; "I had no idea of such a thing till Davidtold me yesterday morning of his intentions. "

"Yes, and he explained to me why he told you, and why he dared not waitany longer. He blurts out every thing, the foolish boy! But he has madefriends with me now. They do seem such children, do they not, comparedwith old folks like you and me?"

What was it in the tone or the words which made her feel not in the leastvexed, nor once attempt to rebut the charge of being "old?"

"I'll tell you what it is, " said Robert Roy, with one of his sage smiles, "you must not go and vex yourself needlessly about trifles. We shouldnot judge other people by ourselves. Every body is so different. Dalziel may make his way all the better for having that pretty creaturefor a wife, not but what some other pretty creature might soon have donejust as well. Very few men have tenacity of nature enough, if they cannot get the one woman they love, to do without any other to the end oftheir days. But don't be disappointed yourself about your girl. Davidwill make her a very good husband. They will be happy enough, eventhough not very rich. "

"Does that matter much?"

"I used to think so. I had so sore a lesson of poverty in my youth, thatit gave me an almost morbid terror of it, not for myself, but for anywoman I cared for. Once I would not have done as Dalziel has for theworld. Now I have changed my mind. At any rate, David will not have onemisfortune to contend with. He has a thoroughly good opinion of himself, poor fellow! He will not suffer from that horrible self-distrust whichmakes some men let themselves drift on and on with the tide, instead oftaking the rudder into their own hands and steering straight on--directfor the haven where they would be. Oh, that I had done it. "

He spoke passionately, and then sat silent. At last, muttering somethingabout "begging her pardon, " and "taking a liberty, " he changed theconversation into another channel, by asking whether this marriage, whenit happened--which, of course could not be just immediately--would makeany difference to her circumstances. 

Some difference, she explained, because the girls would receive theirlittle fortunes whenever they came of age or married, and the sisterswould not like to be parted; besides, Helen's money would help theestablishment. Probably, whenever David married, he would take themboth away; indeed, he had said as much. 

"And then shall you stay on here?"

"I may, for I have a small income of my own; besides, there are your twolittle boys, and I might find two or three more. But I do not troublemyself much about the future. One thing is certain, I need never workas hard as I have done all my life. "

"Have you worked so very hard, then, my poor--"

He left the sentence unfinished; his hand, half extended, was drawn back, for the three young people were seen coming down the garden, followed bythe two boys, returning from their classes. It was nearly dinner-time, and people must dine, even though in love; and boys must be kept totheir school work, and all the daily duties of life must be done. Well, perhaps, for many of us, that such should be! I think it was as well forpoor Fortune Williams. 

The girls had come in wet through, with one of those sudden "haars" whichare not uncommon at St. Andrews in spring, and it seemed likely to lastall day. Mr. Roy looked out of the window at it with a slightly dolorousair. 

"I suppose I am rather _de trop_ here, but really I wish you would notturn me out. In weather like this our hotel coffee-room is just a trifledull, isn't it, Dalziel? And, Miss Williams, your parlor looks socomfortable. Will you let me stay?"

He made the request with a simplicity quite pathetic. One of the mostlovable things about this man--is it not in all men?--was, that with allhis shrewdness and cleverness, and his having been knocked up and downthe world for so many years, he still kept a directness and simpleness ofcharacter almost child-like. 

To refuse would have been unkind, impossible; so Miss Williams told himhe should certainly stay if he could make himself comfortable. And tothat end she soon succeeded in turning off her two turtle-doves into aroom by themselves, for the use of which they had already bargained, in order to "read together, and improve their minds. " Meanwhile sheand Helen tried to help the two little boys to spend a dull holidayindoors--if they were ever dull beside Uncle Robert, who had not losthis old influence with boys, and to those boys was already a father inall but the name. 

Often Fortune watched them, sitting upon his chair, hanging about him ashe walked, coming to him for sympathy in every thing. Yes, every bodyloved him, for there was such an amount of love in him toward everymortal creature, except--

She looked at him and his boys, then turned away. What was to be hadbeen, and always would be. That which we fight against in our youth asbeing human will, human error, in our age we take humbly, knowing it tobe the will of God. 

By-and-by in the little household the gas was lighted, the curtainsdrawn, and the two lovers fetched in for tea, to behave themselves asmuch as they could like ordinary mortals, in general society, for therest of the evening. A very pleasant evening it was, spite of this newelement; which was got rid of as much as possible by means of the windowrecess, where Janetta and David encamped composedly, a little aloof fromthe rest. 

"I hope they don't mind me, " said Mr. Roy, casting an amused glance intheir direction, and then adroitly maneuvering with the back of his chairso as to interfere as little as possible with the young couple'sfelicity. 

"Oh no, they don't mind you at all, " answered Helen, always affectionate, if not always wise. "Besides, I dare say you yourself were young once, Mr. Roy. "

Evidently Helen had no idea of the plans for her future which were beingtalked about in St. Andrews. Had he? No one could even speculate withsuch an exceedingly reserved person. He retired behind his newspaper, and said not a single word. 

Nevertheless, there was no cloud in the atmosphere. Every body was usedto Mr. Roy's silence in company. And he never troubled any body, noteven the children, with either a gloomy look or a harsh word. He was socomfortable to live with, so unfailingly sweet and kind. 

Although there was a strange atmosphere of peace in the cottage thatevening, though nobody seemed to do any thing or say very much. Now andthen Mr. Roy read aloud bits out of his endless newspapers--he had atruly masculine mania for newspapers, and used to draw one after anotherout of his pockets, as endless as a conjurer's pocket-handkerchiefs. Andhe liked to share their contents with any body that would listen; thoughI am afraid nobody did listen much to-night except Miss Williams, who satbeside him at her sewing, in order to get the benefit of the same lamp. And between his readings he often turned and looked at her, her benthead, her smooth soft hair, her busy hands. 

Especially after one sentence, out of the "Varieties" of some Fifenewspaper. He had begun to read it, then stopped suddenly, but finishedit. It consisted only of a few words: _"'Young love is passionate, oldlove is faithful; but the very tenderest thing in all this world is alove revived. '_ That is true. "

He said only those three words, in a very low, quiet voice, but Fortuneheard. His look she did not see, but she felt it--even as a person longkept in darkness might feel a sunbeam strike along the wall, making itseem possible that there might be somewhere in the earth such a thing asday. 

About nine P. M. The lovers in the window recess discovered that the haarwas all gone, and that it was a most beautiful moonlight night; fullmoon, the very night they had planned to go in a body to the top of St. Regulus tower. 

"I suppose they must, " said Mr. Roy to Miss Williams; adding, "Let theyoung folks make the most of their youth; it never will come again. "

"No. "

"And you and I must go too. It will be more _comme il faut_, as peoplesay. "

So, with a half-regretful look at the cozy fire, Mr. Roy marshaled thelively party, Janetta and David, Helen and the two boys; engaging to getthem the key of that silent garden of graves over which St. Regulus towerkeeps stately watch. How beautiful it looked, with the clear sky shiningthrough its open arch, and the brilliant moonlight, bright as day almost, but softer, flooding every alley of that peaceful spot! It quieted eventhe noisy party who were bent on climbing the tower, to catch a view, such as is rarely equaled, of the picturesque old city and its beautifulbay. 

"A 'comfortable place to sleep in, ' as some one once said to me in aMelbourne church-yard. But 'east or west, home is best. --I think, Bob, I shall leave it in my will that you are to bury me at St. Andrews. '"

"Nonsense, Uncle Robert! You are not to talk of dying. And you are tocome with us up to the top of the tower. Miss Williams, will you cometoo?"

"No, I think she had better not, " said Uncle Robert, decisively. "Shewill stay here, and I will keep her company. "

So the young people all vanished up the tower, and the two elders walkedsilently side by side the quiet graves--by the hearts which had ceasedbeating, the hands which, however close they lay, would never clasp oneanother any more. 

"Yes, St. Andrews is a pleasant place, " said Robert Roy at last. "Ispoke in jest, but I meant in earnest; I have no wish to leave it again. And you, " he added, seeing that she answered nothing--"what plans haveyou? Shall you stay on at the cottage till these young people aremarried?"

"Most likely. We are all fond of the little house. "

"No wonder. They say a wandering life after a certain number of yearsunsettles a man forever; he rests nowhere, but goes on wandering to theend. But I feel just the contrary. I think I shall stay permanently atSt. Andrews. You will let me come about your cottage, 'like a tame cat, 'as that foolish fellow owned he had called me--will you not?"

"Certainly. "

But at the same time she felt there was a strain beyond which she couldnot bear. To be so near, yet so far; so much to him, and yet so little. She was conscious of a wild desire to run away somewhere--run away andescape it all; of a longing to be dead and buried, deep in the sea, upaway among the stars. 

"Will those young people be very long, do you think?"

At the sound of her voice he turned to look at her, and saw that she wasdeadly pale, and shivering from head to foot. 

"This will never do. You must 'come under my plaidie, ' as the childrensay, and I will take you home at once. Boys!" he called out to thefigures now appearing like jackdaws at the top of the tower, "we aregoing straight home. Follow us as soon as you like. Yes, it must beso, " he answered to the slight resistance she made. "They must all takecare of themselves. I mean to take care of you. "

Which he did, wrapping her well in the half of his plaid, drawing herhand under his arm and holding it there--holding it close and warm athis heart all the way along the Scores and across the Links, scarcelyspeaking a single word until they reached the garden gate. Even therehe held it still. 

"I see your girls coming, so I shall leave you. You are warm now, areyou not?"

"Quite warm. "

"Good-night, then. Stay. Tell me"--he spoke rapidly, and with muchagitation--"tell me just one thing, and I will never trouble you again. Why did you not answer a letter I wrote to you seventeen years ago?"

"I never got any letter. I never had one word from you after the Sundayyou bade me good-by, promising to write. "

"And I did write, " cried he, passionately. "I posted it with my ownhands. You should have got it on the Tuesday morning. "

She leaned against the laurel bush, that fatal laurel bush, and in a fewbreathless words told him what David had said about the hidden letter. 

"It must have been my letter. Why did you not tell me this before?"

"How could I? I never knew you had written. You never said a word. Inall these years you have never said a single word. "

Bitterly, bitterly he turned away. The groan that escaped him--a man'sgroan over his lost life--lost, not wholly through fate alone--was suchas she, the woman whose portion had been sorrow, passive sorrow only, never forgot in all her days. 

"Don't mind it, " she whispered--"don't mind it. It is so long past now. "

He made no immediate answer, then said, "Have you no idea what was in the letter?"

"No. "

"It was to ask you a question, which I had determined not to ask justthen, but I changed my mind. The answer, I told you, I should wait forin Edinburgh seven days; after that, I should conclude you meant No, andsail. No answer came, and I sailed. "

He was silent. So was she. A sense of cruel fatality came over her. Alas! those lost years, that might have been such happy years! At lengthshe said, faintly, "Forget it. It was not your fault. "

"It was my fault. If not mine, you were still yourself--I ought never tohave let you go. I ought to have asked again; to have sought through thewhole world till I found you again. And now that I have found you--"

"Hush! The girls are here. "

They came along laughing, that merry group--with whom life was at itsspring--who had lost nothing, knew not what it was to lose!

"Good-night, " said Mr. Roy, hastily. "But--to-morrow morning?"

"Yes. "

"There never is night to which comes no morn, " says the proverb. Whichis not always true, at least as to this world; but it is true sometimes. 

That April morning Fortune Williams rose with a sense of strangesolemnity--neither sorrow nor joy. Both had gone by; but they had leftbehind them a deep peace. 

After her young people had walked themselves off, which they didimmediately after breakfast, she attended to all her household duties, neither few nor small, and then sat down with her needle-work beside theopen window. It was a lovely day; the birds were singing, the leavesbudding, a few early flowers making all the air to smell like spring. And she--with her it was autumn now. She knew it, but still she did notgrieve. 

Presently, walking down the garden walk, almost with the same firm stepof years ago--how well she remembered it!--Robert Roy came; but it wasstill a few minutes before she could go into the little parlor to meethim. At last she did, entering softly, her hand extended as usual. Hetook it, also as usual, and then looked down into her face, as he haddone that Sunday. "Do you remember this? I have kept it for seventeenyears. "

It was her mother's ring. She looked up with a dumb inquiry. 

"My love, did you think I did not love you?--you always, and only you?"

So saying, he opened his arms; she felt them close round her, just as inher dream. Only they were warm, living arms; and it was this world, notthe next. All those seventeen bitter years seemed swept away, annihilated in a moment; she laid her head on his shoulder and wept outher happy heart there. 

 * * * * * *

The little world of St. Andrews was very much astonished when itlearned that Mr. Roy was going to marry, not one of the pretty MissMoseleys, but their friend and former governess, a lady, not by anymeans young, and remarkable for nothing except great sweetness andgood sense, which made every body respect and like her; though nobodywas much excited concerning her. Now people had been excited aboutMr. Roy, and some were rather sorry for him; thought perhaps he hadbeen taken in, till some story got wind of its having been an "oldattachment, " which interested them of course; still, the good folks werehalf angry with him. To go and marry an old maid when he might havehad his choice of half a dozen young ones! when, with his fortune andcharacter, he might, as people say--as they had said of that other goodman, Mr. Moseley--"have married any body!"

They forgot that Mr. Roy happened to be one of those men who have noparticular desire to marry "any body;" to whom _the_ woman, whetherfound early or late--alas! in this case found early and won late--is theone woman in the world forever. Poor Fortune--rich Fortune! she need notbe afraid of her fading cheek, her silvering hair; he would never seeeither. The things he loved her for were quite apart from any thing thatyouth could either give or take away. As he said one, when she lamentedhers, "Never mind, let it go. You will always be yourself--and mine. "

This was enough. He loved her. He had always loved her: she had nofear but that he would love her faithfully to the end. 

Theirs was a very quiet wedding, and a speedy one. "Why should theywait? they had waited too long already, " he said, with some bitterness. But she felt none. With her all was peace. 

Mr. Roy did another very foolish thing which I can not conscientiouslyrecommend to any middle-aged bachelor. Besides marrying his wife, hemarried her whole family. There was no other way out of the difficulty, and neither of them was inclined to be content with happiness, leavingduty unfulfilled. So he took the largest house in St. Andrews, andbrought to it Janetta and Helen, till David Dalziel could claim them;likewise his own two orphan boys, until they went to Oxford; for hemeant to send them there, and bring them up in every way like his ownsons. 

Meantime, it was rather a heterogeneous family; but the two heads of itbore their burden with great equanimity, nay, cheerfulness; sayingsometimes, with a smile which had the faintest shadow of pathos in it, "that they liked to have young life about them. "

And by degrees they grew younger themselves; less of the old bachelorand old maid, and more of the happy middle-aged couple to whomHeaven gave, in their decline, a St. Martin's summer almost as sweet asspring. They were both too wise to poison the present by regretting thepast--a past which, if not wholly, was partly, at least, owing to thatstrange fatality which governs so many lives, only some have the will toconquer it, others not. And there are two sides to every thing: RobertRoy, who alone knew how hard his own life had been, sometimes felt astern joy in thinking no one had shared it. 

Still, for a long time there lay at the bottom of that strong, gentleheart of his a kind of remorseful tenderness, which showed itself inheaping his wife with every luxury that his wealth could bring; betterthan all, in surrounding her with that unceasing care which love aloneteaches, never allowing the wind to blow on her too roughly--his "poorlamb, " as he sometime called her, who had suffered so much. 

They are sure, humanly speaking, to "live very happy to the end of theirdays. " And I almost fancy sometimes, if I were to go to St. Andrews, asI hope to do many a time, for I am as fond of the Aged City as they are, that I should see those two, made one at last after all those crueldivided years, wandering together along the sunshiny sands, or standingto watch the gay golfing parties; nay, I am not sure that Robert Roywould not be visible sometimes in his red coat, club in hand, crossingthe Links, a victim to the universal insanity of St. Andrews, yetenjoying himself, as golfers always seem to do, with the enjoyment of avery boy. 

She is not a girl, far from it; but there will always be a girlishsweetness in her faded face till its last smile. And to see her sittingbeside her husband on the green slopes of the pretty garden--knitting, perhaps while he reads his eternal newspapers--is a perfect picture. They do not talk very much; indeed, they were neither of them ever greattalkers. But each knows the other is close at hand, ready for anyneedful word, and always ready with that silent sympathy which is somysterious a thing, the rarest thing to find in all human lives. Thesehave found it, and are satisfied. And day by day truer grows the truthof that sentence which Mrs. Roy once discovered in her husband'spocket-book, cut out of a newspaper--she read and replaced it without aword, but with something between a smile and tear--_"Young love ispassionate, old love is faithful; but the very tenderest thing in allthis world is a love revived. "_