danced and Rachel amongst them; young
gentlemen were introduced to me, and I told
them "I don't dance" with my cold lips.
There was an agonising pressure on my senses of
sound, light, perfume. I thought it was these
things that gave the pain, while from my heart,
which seemed perfectly still, came forth at
intervals the repetition " I will get over it, I
will get over it." John found me out, and said,
quite startled, " What is the matter with you,
Margery?" I complained of "my head," and
drew back within the shelter of a curtain.
"Margery, my dearest, you are ill," he said, and then
the floodgates of bitterness opened in my heart.
How long was he going to act a cruel lie to
me? I said, " I am ill; I must go to bed."
He followed me out of the room,
questioned me anxiously, wrapped me in a shawl,
stood at the foot of the stairs watching till I
passed out of sight; all as if he had still loved
me.

When I reached my room I blew out my
candles, and the fireplace was the only spot of
light in the large shadowy room. I walked up
and down in the dark, thinking about it all. I
could imagine how Rachel and John had met
whilst I was still in Miss Sweetman's schoolroom.
There had been a quarrel, and then had
come John's misfortunes, and they had never
met again till that morning in the sunrise on the
snow. I knew the story as perfectly as if the
firelight were printing it all over the walls for
me to read. And then I had risen up between
them, and here I stood between them, now,
when all their mistakes had been cleared up,
and all their old feelings revived. Well, I
would not be in their way. I would go away
from Hillsbro'.

I crept over to the fire, drew the embers
together, and watched them waning and dying
in the grate. I no longer told myself that I
should get over it. I knew that I should not
die, nor go mad, nor do anything that people
could talk about; but deep in my heart I knew
that here was a sorrow that would go with
me to my grave. I felt that I was not a girl
to put my foot on the memory of it, and go
out into the world again to be wooed and
won afresh. I knew that the spring of my
days was going to end in winter. Then I
thought of how I had turned my back upon
the whole world, all the world that I knew,
to follow my mother's friends to Hillsbro'; how
I had loved them, how I had given my whole
heart and faith to John; how trusting, how
satisfied, how happy I had been. At last my
heart swelled up in softer grief, and I wept with
my face buried in my arms where I lay upon
the hearthrug. And so after long grieving I
sobbed myself to sleep, and wakened in the
dark, towards morning, shuddering with cold
in my thin dress.

The next day I was ill with a feverish cold,
and Rachel tended me. Never was there a
nurse more tender, more patient, more attentive.
I was not at all so ill as to require constant
watching, but she hovered about my bed, applying
remedies, tempting me with dainties, changing
my pillows, shifting the blinds so as to keep
the room cheerful, yet save my burning eyes
from the light. She would not be coaxed away
from me even for an hour. Mrs. Hill, though
kind and sympathetic herself, in a different way,
was dissatisfied, I think. There were other
guests, and she was a lady who took the duties
of hospitality seriously to heart. But Rachel,
playful and charming, even when provoking,
knew how to manage her adopted mother.
There were whispered discussions between them,
of which I, lying with closed eyes, was
supposed to know nothing, and then Rachel would
steal her graceful arm round Mrs. Hill's portly
waist, and kiss her, and put her out of the room.
Mrs. Hill was very good to me, and scrupulously
left her poodle dog on the mat outside the door
when she came to visit me; but her vocation
was not for waiting in sick rooms.

Rachel, soft-voiced, light-footed as a sister of
mercy, moved about in her pale grey woollen
gown, with a few snowdrops in her breast, her
face more thoughtful and sad, yet sweeter than
I had ever seen it. She had a work-basket
beside her, and a book while she sat by the head
of my bed, but I saw that she occupied herself
only with her thoughts, sitting with her hands
laced loosely together in her lap, gazing across
the room through a distant window at the
ragged scratchy outlines of the bare brown
wood that hid the chimneys of the farm from
the view of the inmates of the hall.

It needed no witchcraft to divine her thoughts.
She was thinking of John at the farm, and
possibly of all that had passed there between him
and me. It saddened her, but I thought she
must be very secure in her faith, for there was
no angry disturbance in her anxious eyes, no
bitterness of jealousy about her soft sweet lips.
I read her behaviour all through like a printed
legend; her faithful kindness, her tender care,
her thoughtful regret. She was feeling in her
woman's heart the inevitable wrong she was
about to do me, measuring my love by the
strength and endurance of her own, and pitying
me with a pity which was great in proportion
to the happiness which was to be her own lot
for life.

Everywhere she moved I followed her with
John's eyes, it seemed, seeing new beauties in
her, feeling how he must love her. In my weak
desolation I wished to die, that I might slip
quietly out of the hold of my kind enemy,
leaving vacant for her the place from which she
was going to thrust me with her strong
gentle hands. But under her care I recovered
quickly.

Never had there been such a nurse, such a
petting, fondling, bewitching guardian of an ill-
humoured, nervous, thankless patient. How
lovingly she tucked me up on the couch by the
fireside; how unweariedly she sought to amuse
me with her sprightly wit; how nimbly her feet
went and came; how deftly and readily her
hands ministered; I could never tell you half
of it, my dears! If her face fell into anxious