language. Katharine fancied she saw a new spirit, too, and a higher one.

'Wilfrid!' she uttered, her whole frame vibrating to a sob of supreme emotion-of grief, joy, love, doubt. And she stretched out her hands towards him. Even as she spoke his face changed-she saw it; read the subtle message that lies in expression, and sprang forward. In an instant her arms were round his neck, and she knew at last one moment of perfect joy, for he clasped her to his very heart, while his lips pressed hers in a long, silent kiss of mingled love and reconciliation.

If it were but for a moment, that moment was worth cycles of daily existence; yea, even of suffering and pain.

Ah, let us own that life has far more griefs than joys, that some lives are shaded with sorrow from birth to death; but let us never yield the conviction that this same life has its moments of joy which can crown those sorrows

with gladness, as we lay a myrtle wreath upon the cross that is a headstone, and make them endurable; nay, which can make the memory of them, by comparison, almost grateful.

To feel his arms about her as she did then, to have that kiss upon her lips, and to learn, from the sudden burst of deep emotion, that he loved her-he for whose love she cared more than for anything in the world-this was to Katharine the sum of possible happiness; the object for which she had lived. Existence could offer to her nothing so exquisite again. That passionate, straining clasp at last relaxed. She loosened herself from his arms, so that she could look into his face. It was tender, but sad withal. To her it seemed that there could be no other face half so beautiful. His expression of sorrow and foreboding was in sad contrast with the tremulous, quivering happiness of hers; his steady, mournful eyes looked into Katharine's, which were dark and swimming in tears; tears hung on

her eyelashes, and rested on her cheek. At that moment, if at no other of her life, she was beautiful.

'So you cared for me yet, Kate?'

'I cannot imagine any state of existence in which I did not care for you.'

'Well, that's satisfactory, at all events,' said he, regaining somewhat of his usual manner. They were silent for a little time, and then Katharine said—

'Do you miss me? I miss my work. It is very dreary living with no one but weak There is nothing to brace, nothing to sustain. I used to think business and its details

women.

dry husks. How I wish I had them now!' 'Come back when you will. I miss you dreadfully. When shall I have you at home again?'

Her face fell. 'I cannot come. I must stay with her. I took no love to my task, only a kind of dislike, but love has come in spite of myself.'

'Then do you mean to stay there?'

As he spoke he touched her cheek with his hand, as if, in his new-born tenderness for her, he had need of some caress to make it known.

'Yes, for the present,' said Katharine, with a smile of exquisite pleasure and pathos, as she took his hand, just for the delight of proving that he would allow her to hold it without reproof or resistance.

'For the present,' she repeated, ‘until

Their eyes met; Katharine failed to finish her sentence. Both at the same moment realised that when Sara was dead, Wilfrid would be 'free.' Perhaps both, too, knew that there is freedom and freedom.

He might be free, insomuch as having no tie to any particular place or person constitutes freedom; but beyond that——. Katharine dared not dwell upon this problem. She only knew, as by a flash of sudden intuition, what was now troubling Wilfrid. In her

immediate interest in Sara she had forgotten the possibilities attendant upon her death.

The moment in which her brother had taken her in his arms and kissed her, had

been very sweet, very bright. All things had then seemed easy, understandable, lucid; but on her homeward way she was again assailed with doubts.

Wilfrid was reconciled with her that thought made her heart leap for joy; but she was not dying nor broken-hearted. What was she to say to Sara? How meet the anxious, wistful eyes that would turn to her when she was with her sister again?