it was too late, for ever too late! "We were
both silent. At length, raising up his head,
he said, abruptly:

"You little know what my life might have
been but for you. You little know, Miss Sydney,
that you once held my fate in your hands."

I looked at him till I could not see him for
blinding tears.

"Do I not know it?" I asked. " Had I not
seen it, though you never spoke; and did I not
hear your sister Ellen speaking to you along
the hedge as I sat by the stile, ten years ago?
She sealed my fate and yours then. I do not
complain, I forgive her; but do not blame me
for your sorrows. She spoke, and you
listened—and what could I do, Mr. Gibson?  I
was a woman condemned to silence; a woman
compelled to wait for a wooing that came not.
She repeated words that had been spoken many
vears, and used them against me, and you
believed her, and had no faith in me, and what
could I do? I never so much as saw you once
before you left. Did you make one attempt,
Mr. Gibson, to learn the truth from me? Not
one. Remember that, and never reproach me
for what was your own doing."

He looked at me like one transfixed, then his
lip quivered and his eye grew dim.

"Then it might have been," he said, in a
low tone—" it might have been!"

"Yes," I replied, trying to smile, " it might
have been, and now it is too late; and even if
it were not, we both have passed that time, and
should bury it far and deep, and set a gravestone
over it, with a hic jacet epitaph as final
as any ever engraved in a churchyard."

He was silent for a while. I believe his
heart was very full, and when he did speak at
length, it was to tell me how dear I had been
to him in these last days, which might have
been so blessed. It was also then he said how
beautiful he thought me when I came to live
at Rosebower. Well, he was the first and last
who ever told me such a tale, and as I stood on
the hearth before him, with my hand clasped in
his for our last adieu, I could smile at the pale
face I saw in the tarnished mirror; poor pale
face, as pale and as faded as these last years of
my youth.

It was late when he at length said good-bye.
I walked out with him through the chill garden,
and parted from him at the gate, whilst he went
on to the village inn where he slept. He left
early the next morning, and I saw him no
more. I have heard about him since then, but
we have never met again. It is better so. Why
go back to a lost past—lost and barren! I am
not unhappy, though I cannot forget him, but
I do not care to think of him in the time when
he was my shy nervous lover. When I
remember William Gibson, it is as a kind grave
youth, who found me crying in the lonely
parlour of Rosebower, and who, taking me by the
hand, led me out on the shore, and there spoke
words of wise and gentle comfort to a weeping
girl.

About a month after his departure, my dear
boy paid me a very unexpected visit. He was
twenty-four then, quite a man, and doing
wonderfully, according to his account, more
moderately, in my opinion. I wondered what
had brought him. He soon told me.

"Sister Anne," he said, when our first greeting
was over, " Monsieur Thomas has turned
up. He has been heard of in Algeria."

Monsieur Thomas was the gentleman who
owed us forty thousand pounds. I shook my
head rather doubtfully.

"There are so many Thomases all over the
world," said I.

"Oh, but this is the one," eagerly replied
William; " and he is quite a rich man, and can
pay us principal and interest, you know, and
we can get back the old house, and live in it,
and bid a last good-bye to Rosebower."

"My dear William, do not be too hopeful.
Depend upon it this Thomas is not the right
one, or if he is, he will never pay us."

"You are a Thomas of Didymus, Sister
Anne. I tell you this is the man." And he
proceeded to give me proofs which convinced
me.

Yes, this Thomas was our Thomas, but my
older knowledge of the world would not allow
me now the illusions I had formerly indulged
in. William got vexed with my scepticism,
and said, rather warmly:

"I tell you he shall pay us, and, what is
more, I shall be off to Algiers next week."

"My dear boy, you do not mean it!"

But he did mean it, and meant it very se-
riously too. Now, I knew this was ruin. To
leave his work when he was just beginning to
be known in it was ruin, and I tried to impress
this truth upon him, in vain. The forty thousand
pounds dazzled him, and for that ignis
fatuus he was willing to forego the steady flow
of his little prosperity at home. I took a
desperate resolve.

"I shall go to Algiers," I said, "and so you
will run no risk of loss, and be no worse off if
the money cannot be recovered."

William's face fell. I suspect the pleasure
of seeing Africa, palm-trees, and turbaned Arabs
had had something to do with his eagerness to
hunt down Monsieur Thomas. But my
proposal was so reasonable, that he did not dare to
resist it; he raised, indeed, a few objections,
which I promptly overruled, and my journey
was decided.