with her. When you say your prayers, sir, pray God to leave my daughter here a little longer.'

He sighed heavily; his head dropped again on his breast-he left me.

The hour advanced; the evening meal was set by my bedside. Silent Peter, taking his leave for the night, developed into speech. 'I sleep next door,' he said. 'Ring when you want me.' My travelling-companion, taking the second bed in the room, reposed in the happy sleep of youth. In the house, there was dead silence. Out of the house, the low song of the night-wind, rising and falling over the lake and the moor, was the one sound to be heard. So the first day ended in the hospitable Shetland house.

CHAPTER II.

THE GREEN FLAG.

'I CONGRATULATE you, Mr. Germaine, on your power of painting in words. Your description gives me a vivid idea of Mrs. Van Brandt.'

Does the portrait please you, Miss Dunross?'

'May I speak as plainly as usual?
'Certainly!'

'Well, then, plainly, I don't like your Mrs. Van Brandt.'

Ten days had passed; and thus far Miss Dunross had made her way into my confidence already!

By what means had she induced me to

trust her with those secret and sacred sorrows of my life which I had hitherto kept for my mother's ear alone? I can easily recall the rapid and subtle manner in which her sympathies twined themselves round mine—but I fail entirely to trace the infinite gradations of approach, by which she surprised and conquered my habitual reserve. The strongest influence of all, the influence of the eye, was not hers. When the light was admitted into the room, she was shrouded in her veil. At all other times, the curtains were drawn, the screen was before the fire-I could see dimly the outline of her face, and I could see no more. The secret of her influence was perhaps partly attributable to the simple and sisterly manner in which she spoke to me, and partly to the indescribable interest which associated itself with her mere presence in the room. Her father had told me that she

'carried the air of Heaven with her.' In my

experience, I can only say that she carried something with her which softly and inscrutably possessed itself of my will, and made me as unconsciously obedient to her wishes as if I had been her dog. The lovestory of my boyhood, in all its particulars, down even to the gift of the green-flag; the mystic predictions of Dame Dermody; the loss of every trace of my little Mary of former days; the rescue of Mrs. Van Brandt from the river; the apparition of her in the summer-house; the after-meetings with her in Edinburgh and in London; the final parting which had left its mark of sorrow on my face-all these events, all these sufferings, I confided to her as unreservedly as I have confided them to these pages. And the result, as she sat by me in the darkened room, was summed up, with a woman's headlong impetuosity of judgment, in the words I have just written 'I don't like your Mrs. Van Brandt!"

'Why not?' I asked.

She answered instantly, 'Because you ought to love nobody but Mary.'

But Mary has been lost to me since I was a boy of thirteen.'

'Be patient and you will find her again. Mary is patient-Mary is waiting for you. When you meet her, you will be ashamed to remember that you ever loved Mrs. Van Brandt-you will look on your separation. from that woman as the happiest event of your life. I may not live to hear of it-but you will live to own that I was right.'

Her perfectly-baseless conviction that time would yet bring about my meeting with Mary, partly irritated, partly amused

me.'

'You seem to agree with Dame Dermody,' I said. You believe that our two destinies are one. No matter what time may elapse, or what may happen in the time, you believe