fro, beating her throbbing brow with her little
hands, and crying pitifully.

"How can I ever look in that good, generous,
face again? What will he think of me?"

But as days passed on and Sir William still
continued to call and leave a card without asking
to see her, Lily began to feel uneasy. Did
he despise her? And were these merely calls of
formal courtesy? Her heart took alarm, and
she found herself anxiously asking why he did
not come. Every afternoon, about the time he
was accustomed to call and leave his card, she
found herself standing behind the curtains of
her uncle's grand sitting-room, peeping out
into the street to watch for his brougham. Many
broughams and carriages drove up to the door
of Pomeroy's in the course of an afternoon, and
Lily had no means of recognising Sir William's
carriage unless she saw Sir William himself.
One day a brougham stopped, and Constant
approached the door, and stood talking for a few
minutes with its unseen occupant. At the close
of the colloquy, Lily observed a card given out
to the hotel-keeper by a long thin white hand.
It was his hand! Could she ever forget it!
The hand which had fondled and patted her at
Greenwich—the hand upon which she had
noticed the great signet ring engraved with the
little bird, whose motto was "Hope and Fortune."

Fortune had come, and she valued it not a
straw. The grandeur by which she was
surrounded chilled and terrified her; the jewels
which her uncle had given her were weary
chains binding her to a blank and soulless life.
The hope at her breast, the hope of love and
peace, had yet to be fulfilled.

"Oh, why does he not come? Why does he
not come?"

The very next day the brougham drove up to
the door, and from her love's watch-tower behind
the silken curtain, Lily saw Sir William get out
and enter the hotel. Almost the next instant
the servant announced him.

Lily's heart was fluttering in her breast like a
scared bird in a cage. The room swam before
her eyes, and she was about to fall, when her
hands were gently seized and tenderly imprisoned
between two others. She heard her name
mentioned, and, lifting up her eyes from the ground,
she saw, looking down upon her, the calm,
earnest, loving face which had first won her
child's heart, the bright vision of which had so
long sustained and cheered her in the time of
her misery and solitude.

"Tell me, Lily," said Sir William, almost
doubtfully, "am I welcome? Are you glad to
see me?"

Lily could not reply. Her eyes fell, her head
dropped upon her bosom, and she sank upon a
couch.

Sir William sat down beside her, and begged
for an answer.

"Lily, Lily," he said, "I have loved you
with the same love ever since you were a
little child at Greenwich. Have you forgotten
it?"

Poor Lily! It only pained her the more that
he should think she had forgotten that bright
day. She felt in her conscience that she had
given him reason to think so.

"Forgotten it!" she said. "Oh no, no, no."

"Do you remember it well?" said the
baronet.

"As if it were yesterday," Lily replied.

"Do you remember," he continued, "do you
remember asking me if I were good? I was not
good then; but I became a better man from that
day. You asked me if I ever went to church?
I confessed to you that I never went to church.
But I went to church on the following Sunday,
and on many Sundays after that. Do you
remember the apple, and throwing the peel
over my left shoulder when it fell upon the
carpet in the shape of the letter W? You
clapped your hands and said, 'How nice!' and
asked me to be your sweetheart; but you were
a child then. You don't remember it as I do."

Quite unconsciously, Sir William was cutting
poor Lily to the very quick. She remembered
all these things, and had thought of them often
and often, clinging to them with a longing,
loving heart, until the day that Edgar appeared.
Then she began to forget. But he had cherished
all these things to this day.

"Oh, Sir William," she cried, "you make
me feel that I have been very ungrateful, very
foolish, very wicked."

"Lily!" he exclaimed; "what have I said
to pain you?"

"Nothing," she said. "It is not you who
have given me pain; I have made the scourge
for myself. I know the deep debt of gratitude
I owe you—"

"Still that cold word, Lily," he said,
pitifully.

She hung her head and sobbed.

"Sir William," she continued through her
tears, "I ought to throw myself at your feet and
beg your forgiveness on my knees; you, who
have been so good, so kind, so trusting: while
I—but I cannot speak what is at my heart.
Leave me now; I am not worthy of you; let
me write to you and explain all, and then, if you
can forgive me—"

Her tears choked her utterance. She rose
suddenly, gave him her hand, and rushed from
the room, sobbing bitterly.

Sir William left the hotel with a sad heart,
sorely troubled and perplexed. He could only
guess at the cause of Lily's distress. He
discerned that she reproached herself for
something—for having loved the worthless Edgar,
perhaps. Or possibly she might have discovered
that he, Sir William, was her mother's unknown
benefactor at Ranelagh, and was pained that
she could not requite that kindness with love.
And then he thought of his age. He was forty.
He had spent the best of his days. And
Lily? Lily was just budding into womanhood.
As yet, before her the world lay all fresh and
new, with joys and pleasures yet to be tasted.
Why should he seek to link her young life with
his. And yet the disparity was not so great