garden,' I said. 'I feel chilled by the cold.

evening air.'

'Will you have some more wood put on the fire?' she asked.

thing?'

'Can I get you any

'No, thank you. I shall do very well here. I see you are kindly ready to write for me.'

'Yes,' she said, 'at your own convenience. When you are ready, my pen is ready.'

The unacknowledged reserve that had come between us since we had last spoken together was, I believe, as painfully felt by her as by me. We were no doubt longing to break through it on either side-if we had only known how. The writing of the letter would occupy us at any rate. I made another effort to give my mind to the subject -and once more it was an effort made in

vain. Knowing what I wanted to say to my mother, my faculties seemed to be paralysed

when I tried to say it.

the fire and she sat

writing-case on her lap.

I sat cowering by

waiting with her

CHAPTER IV.

SHE CLAIMS ME AGAIN.

THE moments passed; the silence between us continued. Miss Dunross made an attempt

to rouse me.

with

'Have you decided to go back to Scotland your friends at Lerwick?' she asked. 'It is no easy matter,' I replied, ‘to decide on leaving my friends in this house.' Her head drooped lower on her bosom ; her voice sank as she answered me.

'Think of your mother,' she said. The first duty you owe is your duty to her. Your long absence is a heavy trial to her— your mother is suffering.'

"You forget that you have allowed me to read her letters,' Miss Dunross interposed. I see the unwritten and unconscious confession of anxiety in every line that she writes to you. You know, as well as I do, that there is cause for her anxiety. Make her happy by telling her that you sail for home with your friends. Make her happier still by telling her that you grieve no more over the loss of Mrs. Van Brandt. May I write it, in your name and in those words?'

I felt the strangest reluctance to permit her to write in those terms, or in any terms, of Mrs. Van Brandt. The unhappy love-story

of my manhood had never been a forbidden subject between us on former occasions. Why did I feel as if it had become a forbidden subject now? Why did I evade giving her a direct reply?

'We have plenty of time before us,' I said. 'I want to speak to you about yourself.'

She lifted her hand in the obscurity that surrounded her, as if to protest against the topic to which I had returned. I persisted nevertheless in returning to it.

'If I must go back,' I went on, 'I may venture to say to you at parting, what I have not said yet. I cannot, and will not, believe that you are an incurable invalid. My education, as I have told you, has been the education of a medical man. I am well acquainted with some of the greatest living physicians, in Edinburgh, as well as in London. Will you allow me to describe your malady (as I understand it) to men who are accustomed to treat cases of intricate nervous disorder? And will you let me write and tell you the result ? '

I waited for her reply. Neither by word