CHAPTER XIII.

'And I heard the kirk-bells ringing very slowly.'
-Book of Orm the Celt.

HE next evening Wilfrid came home,
even while Katharine was sighing

over the fact that another day had

passed without news of him.

She hung about him, not venturing to ask a question, but gladdened beyond measure to have him home again. He kissed her, smiled, and asked if she were glad to see him.

'Yes, yes, so glad! But, Wilfrid, you look ill, you look sad! I must say it, for it is

true!'

It was perfectly true. The shadow which, since Sara's death, she had seen on his face, was deeper, more marked. His would always be a beautiful face. To his last day, if he lived to be a hundred, people would turn to look after him-men with perhaps a little envy, women with hearty, involuntary admiration of the stately pride of his figure, and the clear-cut, disdainful outline of his face. Beautiful, but, to Katharine's eager, thirsty eyes, most sad, most saddening.

To her unspeakable uneasiness, the weary listlessness she had marked of late, the distant, seeking look that puzzled her, had deepened and increased with his absence. She wished to ask about Thorgerd, but she could not summon courage. She dreaded to hear some ill news.

He chose, however, to break the ice himself.

'Kate, you look at me so wistfully, it is irresistible. I have good news for you. You may congratulate me.'

May I?' she said, eagerly but timidly. Then has Thorgerd'

'She has consented to crown

even

my unworthy life with her love and fellowship. I ought to be happy, ought I not?'

'And you are, dear Wilfrid, are not you? Surely you are happy this is all you aimed at.'

:

'Yes,' said he, dreamily; 'all I aimed at, and more. Katharine, can a man; no, I mean, when a man has acted as I have, has he the right to be happy? That's what I can't make out.'

'No one is perfectly happy, Wilfrid; but you must not give way to these unreasoning fears and forebodings; they are not worthy of you. Come, Wilfrid, you have sinned, but you have repented; and how can you expiate your sin better than by making such a woman as Thorgerd happy, and leading a noble life with her?"

'That would make us happy

is "Sara Healey, Infelix "?'

But there

Katharine was startled. She had no idea that he knew anything of Sara's grave. His words touched the very well-spring of her own doubt and uncertainty, but she could not bear to see him unhappy. She started up, saying vehemently——

'That is all sophism, Wilfrid; folly, and worse than folly. "Let the dead bury their dead." What have you to do with that now? I tell you it is wrong to torment yourself thus. Did you mention it to Thorgerd?'

'No. I asked her to take my life and do what she liked with it. I told her that her husband would never be a happy man, or a cheerful one: she said she loved me better

than happiness. Yesterday morning, when I came away, she kissed me-the first time she ever did so: when will she kiss me again?' he concluded, slowly, and then added

abruptly, 'Bah! what imbecility!

Tell me

-how have things gone on-smoothly?'

Delighted to make him think of something else, Katharine told him all that had happened while he had been away, adding

'Wilfrid, won't you thank Mr. Earnshaw too? What could I have done without him? I honour and trust him more than I could

tell you.'

'Yes, I'll see him. I like him well myself.' They conversed for a long time upon various topics, and then both retired.

Katharine in the dead of the night awoke, and started up, with a thick, nameless oppression at her heart, and what seemed like the sound of a deep, hollow church bell tolling, which reverberated like a memory through the chambers of her brain.

Soon it was no more a memory: it became a reality. A long, resonant note kept clamorously sounding, and in two seconds she