without bidding you good-bye, but I would not
allow that."

So he was going again— going, and I had
not seen him once; and his sister and my
brother were present, and what could I do or
say now?

"I should have been very sorry not to see
Mr. Gibson," I replied.

"I—I was afraid of intruding," he
stammered.

I called Jane, and bade her bring out chairs;
but Ellen interfered.

"Bless you, he has not a minute to spare,"
she said; " and he is going for I don't know
how long."

I looked at him; I could not help it; and he
has told me since how that look startled and
staggered him. But he did not understand its
meaning, I suppose; for he said a few words
more, then he went. He went, and I could
not call him back; I could not say to him,
"Stay; I love you! Do not believe her; she
is false, she is selfish; she wants to keep you
unmarried for her own ends; but I love you.
I esteem, I admire you, and I love you with my
whole soul, with my whole heart!" I could
say nothing. He took my hand, and it lay cold
and passive in his, and did not betray the secret
I would have laid before him so willingly. He
went, and I let him go, feeling all the time that
he took with him my little share of woman's
happiness here below.

"What a great baby!" said my darling.
My heart was very full. My love for him had
cost me very dear; since, but for his relapse,
William Gibson had never been lost to me; but
I bless heaven that, heavy though my heart
felt just then, neither that petulant speech of a
boy, nor the heavy price I had paid for his
love, could raise one bitter thought against him
in my heart. I threw my arms around his
neck and kissed him.

"Gcd bless you, my darling!" I said. " God
bless you it shall make no difference."

"Why, sister Anne, you are not crying?"
he said, with a gay laugh.

"What if I am?" I replied, trying to smile.
"What if I am, you foolish boy? All my tears
are not shed yet, are they?"

He patted my cheek and bade me not fret,
for that he was getting well and strong again.
I was then nearly twenty-four, and a woman
of twenty-four can suffer and not show it.
William never suspected, and Ellen never saw,
my grief. She had robbed me of my great
happiness, but I kept my sorrow sacred from
her cruel eyes. The task was an easy one.
She soon left the place and got married; her
mother went to live with her, and died after a
little while. Their cottage could find no tenant,
and ere long became as wild and drearily
forlorn as Rosebower was when I first saw it;
and thus my link with William Gibson, who
had gone abroad, as I learned, was utterly
broken. Once I inquired after him from the
agent to whom I paid the rent.

"Oh! I believe he has got married," the
man replied— " yes, he is married to some
foreign lady or other."

                     CHAPTER III.

MANY women have such sorrows, and go
through them, as I went through mine, with
silent endurance. Time did its work with me,
as it does with thousands daily; the wound
healed, and only now and then a thrill reminded
me of the old pain. Through some fond and
foolish memory of the past, I suppose, I made
my darling a civil engineer. He was in London
away from me, working hard, and full of hopes
of success; and I remained in Rosebower till
the happy time should come that would
reunite us for ever. On this dream I fed and
lived, not unhappy though lonely; and day
after day the stillness that was flowing over my
life grew deeper, till once more it was broken.

I was coming in one evening from a long
walk, when, leaning over my garden gate, and
looking full at me, like the ghost of my former
years, I saw William Gibson. He was much
altered; a thin, worn, unhappy-looking man,
verging on middle age; but I knew him in a
moment. He did not stir until I stood within
a few paces of the gate; then he opened it for
me, and held out his hand in a calm, self-possessed
man-of-the-world manner, which showed
me that the shy nervous William Gibson was
no more. We entered the house together, and
what that first glimpse had revealed, everything
I saw and heard rapidly confirmed. In a
few brief words he told me his story. He had
married a foreign lady, as I had been told, but
his wedded life had proved miserable from the
first day to the last.

"My wife was attached to another man,"
said William Gibson, very calmly, " and was
forced into marrying me. She never forgave
me the offence of having believed in her willingness,
and I never could forgive her for robbing
me of my liberty. After a few wretched years,
during which I vainly tried to win her affections,
we parted by mutual consent. She is
living with her parents, and I am thrown back
on solitude. You did well not to marry, Miss
Sydney; you never ran the venture, and never
paid the cost."

There was a touch of bitterness in his tone,
but I did not seem to notice it. Where was
the use? All was over; he did not know, he
never must know, what he had been once to me,
what I might have been to him. Only once
more did we touch on the subject. Mr. Gibson
stayed a fortnight in the village. I never met
him all that time, and when he called on me
again, it was to bid me good-bye. The autumn
evening was dull, and I had a fire. He leaned
forward, so as to get the heat, and the ruddy
flame played on his bending face. My heart
ached to see how pale and worn he was. Oh!
what a different fate might have been his and
mine, but for his sister! For a third time we
were going to part, and this time there was no
one by to check him or to keep me mute; but