Ronald Lester had never cared for his betrothed's cousin. The strong demands which he made on all those with whom he was intimate soon touched bottom in the selfishness of her nature. She could be gushingly affectionate, but not silently self repressing. Yet he had always shown her a genial indulgence, and she had fancied herself a favorite with him. He admired her beauty, liked her caressing flattery, and showed her a sort of playful attention in those early days when he avoided Dora. Therefore Winny was astonished when the engagement was first announced. "Why, I thought he admired me!" she said. "He positively seemed to hate you. Are you sure there is not a mistake?'' She became convinced, in time, that there was no mistake, and her own heart was not touched at all; though she would willingly have married Ronald, out of vain delight that so serious a man should become her captive.

Presently she fell in love, after her own light fashion, with that young scapegrace Fred Ranger. Her own people opposed the match; she had secret meetings, tried to run away with him, and got herself into much trouble and disgrace. Dora helped her out of her difficulties, persuaded her to a more discreet patience, used on her behalf a diplomacy which she never practised for herself; and so arranged everything that the marriage was permitted, a small portion was handed over to Winny, and an appointment was found for Fred, by Ronald's influence, in the same house which employed Ronald himself. Fred Ranger took his young wife out to Australia and died shortly afterward, leaving her only the small fortune which had been her own marriage portion.

As a widow she was as gay and as affectionate as ever, particularly kind to Ronald "for Dora's sake,' " and it was to her house that Dora went out to be married. I had tired of England long before, and had, somehow or other, drifted out to the same place. I had spent some time in travel, and had qualified myself for various journeys of exploration by attending some medical lectures and going, so far as I could without taking a degree, into hospital and medical work before I left England. The sort of knowledge thus obtained I had found useful to me in many When I came across Rorald Les

ways.

ter he invited me to stay with him, and a sort of curiosity that I had about him made me glad to do so. I wondered how, since he cared so much for Dora, he could contrive to live without her; but I soon became convinced that he was quite as much in love with her as ever. He was holding himself in hand with a sort of fiery patience which was strange to me; the thought of her seemed to possess his life, yet he never seemed to have supposed it possible to sacrifice other aims to secure her sooner. When once, however, the marriage was settled and she was coming out to him, his feeling for her seemed to leap out of the strong restraint he had put upon it.

"To think," he said, "that I have lived without her all these years, and known that she was in the saine world, not another! If I had thought about it I suppose I could not have done it. Now I can dare to think. In another week she will be here, and then, nothing but death, nothing but death. can part us any more!" He rose, stretched himself with the air of a man breaking loose from a long restraint put upon himself; then he went out to the sunset, behind which, somewhere, she sailed toward him. It was strange to me. to hear him speak so unreservedly, and he never did it again but even then I noticed that he thought of his own loss, and not of what she had felt all these long and lonely years.

II.

woman

If there was in the world any man on whose honor and faithfulness a might fully rely, I should have said that man was Ronald Lester. Little as I liked him in some ways, I could have trusted him as completely as-more completely than-myself. Ilis nature seemed less open to indirect temptation; any breach of confidence seemed to be impossible to him. It remains then a terrible mystery to me that for such a man such a fate should have been held in reserve.

I had read of similar things before. I knew of the man who was so affected by a bullet in his brain that for half the months of his life be was a thief and a liar, the other half a good and honest fellow. I knew of the girl whom an attack of illness reduced to childishness, so that she began to live and learn again, forgetting her past; until a second and crueller

attack restored her strangely to her old self, to find that, in the years she had lost, all her life had altered, and her lover had long before married another woman. I knew of these things; but we do not expect such horrors to come into our own lives. Somehow we, and those we love, are (according to our expectations) to be exempt from the more terrible afflictions of our race. "Not unto us, not unto us, O Lord," we cry, may these things come!" And suddenly they are with us, and of us, and are ourselves, and we awake to know the whole horror of that which was but a word and a name to us.

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I am glad to think that Dora Wyntree had one happy evening after she landed in Australia. Ronald net her and took her to her cousin's, and when he came back to me at night he had the air of a man who has been in Paradise. "She is more beautiful than ever," he said to me. "If I had seen her often I could never have waited here."

They were to be married in a few days. If they had been married at once, I suppose, the circumstances that followed must have been different, but how different I cannot say. The morning after Dora's . arrival Ronald met with a bad accident. He was thrown from the horse he was riding, his foot was entangled in the stirrup, and he was dragged along a rough road for some distance before he could be rescued. He was taken up unconscious and carried to Mrs. Ranger's to be nursed. There was a young surgeon in the place who was called in to attend him. He pronounced the injury to the head serious, but was very hopeful of recovery, and congratulated us all on the fact that the patient could have the care of his future wife, evidently a born nurse.

I did not myself see Ronald for some days. He was quite unconscious at first and afterward was kept very quiet. Win ny, however, gave good accounts of him. She had begun to sit with him a little in the daytime, while Dora rested, and she thought that he was coming round very nicely. So did the young doctor. I only saw Dora once or twice for a few minutes, and then she seemed to me anxious and tired.

A private engagement of my own called me away for some days, and when I returned-for a brief interval only-I was told that Mr. Lester was recovering rap

idly and would soon be quite strong again. I was therefore surprised to get a note from Dora Wyntree asking if I would call and see her soon, as she wished to consult me on a point of importance. I was the only old friend who was near her, she wrote, and my medical knowledge might help her. I went at once to Mrs. Ranger's, and was received by Mrs. Ranger herself. "Oh, he's doing beautifully," she said to me, only he's very irritable sometimes. Convalescents are, you know. And somehow Dora does not manage him now; she who was always called such a good nurse. She misunderstands and vexes him. He gets on much better with me. I take things more lightly, you sce. And so I am a great deal with him now. The marriage? Oh, we don't speak of that just yet. I will send Dora to you. I think her quite unreasonably anxious. Do tell her to take things easily."

When Dora came I could see that s'e was not taking things easily, though she took them quietly.

"I am glad you have come," she said. "I want you to see him. You have known him a long time. You will tell me if he seems the same; or if the difference was there-before."

it.

"What difference?" I asked her.
"I cannot tell you. No one else sees

They seem even to like him better. But he seems to me different-from what

I remember. And-" she said looking earnestly at me, and speaking with some hesitation, "I have found out that he does not like me to be in the room; though he tries to hide it from me. I distress him, though I don't know why; so I go away now, and leave him a great deal to Winny."

Her voice trembled as she spoke. I saw that a great fear was in her heart, a fear which she would not utter. She was facing it alone.

"I will see him," I said to her, "and give you my opinion.'

My interview with Ronald was a strange one. The seriousness of the man seemed gone he spoke lightly and oddly; but he seemed to be in easy and pleasant spirits, and Winny laughed a good deal at the clever things he said, and some of them were really very clever. I spoke of Dora. A look of distress, even of perplexity, came over his face; but he struggled with the feeling, whatever it was, that op

pressed him. "She worries herself," he said. "I wish you would tell her to take things easily, like Winny."

I had seen enough. I went back to Dora. "I think it would be best for you to go away for a time," I told her. "For his sake?''

His

"For the sake of both of you. mind will recover its tone most quickly in that way, and without any effort. Effort is bad for him."

She sat down in a chair and looked at the table-cloth, but answered nothing.

"Do not take it too seriously," I said to her. "We must give him a little time, and it will be all right. This sort of thing is not unusual. He has had a bad accident and has not quite got over it."

"But the others?"

"The others see nothing; but you were right. I am glad you spoke to me. Now do as I tell you.'

even

She did not rebel; and I cannot think now that I made a mistake. She would have gone through worse trials, bitterer humiliations, if she had remained with him. A lady, who was a friend of mine, and who lived at some distance, invited her to go to her for rest and change of air for a short time; and she went.

I did not see the parting. I suppose it was a strange one. On one side a hidden tragedy, on the other a light and casual farewell. And, Winny, as spectator, laughed and was very gay.

It was some weeks afterward, that I (who was again up country, engaged on my own enterprises) received another summons from Dora. She was still staying with the friend with whom I had placed her.

"It was foolish perhaps to ask you to come," she said, so soon as I saw her for there was no one else present at the interview" but I thought I should like you just to know-you have been a very good friend to me and I did not feel that I could write it. They are to be married very soon."

"They? Who ?"
"Ronald and Winny."
"The-scoundrel !"

I was silent for a moment. Then I asked, "Has he no conscience left ?" "Oh, yes. But he cannot help it; and I,-I have made it easy to him."

There was the whole situation in a nutshell. He could no longer help it; and so she had made it easy to him.

But I protested against the situation. "This state of things is only temporary, I said, "he will probably, in time, become just what he once was. It is shocking that he should take an irretrievable step now. He could not do it if Mrs. Ranger had been true to you and herself.” "She believes him," said Dora simply, "and I think he is very urgent.'

In this case he was, I believe, very urgent. He was not sure of himself, did not understand himself, and could not bear to wait. He wanted to escape at once from his serious past into a light and easy present which suited his altered temperament. Effort and endurance-once his second nature-had now become intolerable to him; and the presence of those who might expect him to be strong and endure, was for the time intolerable too.

I did not made me It was on

He did not like to see me, but I made a point of visiting him once before his marriage, and of urging delay. do it for Dora's sake; she had promise that I would not. other grounds that I protested against the marriage; but I only made Lester very angry. He assured me that he was doing the wisest thing, the best for everybody. "I very nearly ruined my own happiness," he said, "and Dora's as well, by mistaking a sort of intellectual sympathy for personal love. She would have been miserable as my wife. She sees that now, and is glad to be free."

Still I urged delay.

"There is every reason against it," he said. "Winny wants looking after; and when she is my wife she can look after

Dora, and be a friend to her. That is what I want. Dora would be very lonely, you know, otherwise."

And so they were married; but the promised friendship was ineffectual. Winny had plenty to absorb her in other ways, and somehow Ronald's money did not now go so far as before. He was easy and extravagant, as was his wife. He became a brilliant talker, but rather a careless worker. He took everything pleasantly and lightly; he became very popular socially, a charming acquaintance for all, a real friend to none. Yet some people thought him improved, especially Winny. She said he was so clever, everybody told her so; but his temper was odd and capricious; home life did not suit him; it was almost necessary for them to visit a good deal, whether they could afford it or not.

Meanwhile Dora remained as a governess where she had gone as a friend. She had a hard life of it; the lady of the house fell into ill-health, the children were naughty, and there was far too much work thrown upon Dora's hands. She did not wish, however, to return to England. She had gone away to be married, and the thought of such a return was naturally painful to her. So she stayed where she was. I saw her from time to time; but she never asked me news of the Lesters, and I believe that Winny soon gave up writing to her. Winny's temper was getting spoiled by contact with a nature she did not understand; she had, besides, her sickly little girl to take up much of her time.

At last this sort of life came to an end. The lady who was Dora's friend and the mother of her pupils died; the children were sent away to school, and Dora determined to go back to England. Perhaps she thought she was old enough not to mind the strange humiliation of her return; perhaps the past seemed now far enough behind her to be faced even in the land of her happiest memories. I had always kept a sort of guardianship over her from a distance. Once more I ventured to ask her to marry me, but she answered: No, no; I belong to him,not to Winny's husband, but the Ronald that used to be. He never wronged nie. I am as much his widow as if he had died then. I shall never change. If this terrible thing had happened to me instead of

66

to him, he would have been faithful to me, whatever I did. I will be true to him." This was indeed the strangest instance of faith in the face of fact that I had ever come across; and yet, I think, she was right. The one most cruelly wronged of all of us was Ronald; but fate, and not she, had wronged him.

III.

IF Dora went to England, however, I must go too, and I took passage in the same vessel. She showed as much confidence in my friendship as in Ronald's blameless faithfulness, letting me act as a sort of elderly kinsman to her; but I was really very little older than herself, no older at all than Ronald. He, however, with all his seriousness, had always pos sessed the enchanting and fervid quality of youth, and this was denied to me; perhaps this was why women trusted, but did not love me.

It was with a great shock of surprise that I discovered, when we were already on board the vessel, that the Lesters were to be our fellow-passengers to England. I had seen little of them for some time, and it appeared that they had come away at the last quite suddenly. Ronald had lost his appointment, so Winny told me, but she did not regret it; he would do so much better in England. I gathered from her also that they had lived beyond their means, and were much in debt; and I discovered afterward that her own small portion had gone with the rest. She told me that Ronald had been very strange lately, and restless; he wanted to get away to new places. When I saw him he looked to me like a haunted man; his old self had been gradually coming to life and tormenting him. He dared not face the look of it, and was trying to escape from it. He passed over his difficulties, however, with an air of bravado, very unlike his old character. When he and Dora met face to face for the first time, after those long years, I saw a look of absolute horror in his eyes, as if the past confronted him like a spectre. But she smiled gently, and put out her hand, and he immediately recovered himself. He spoke to her then with an exaggerated air of friendliness and ease, and turned aside to talk to her. She leaned over the bulwarks and looked at the water, and I heard their con

versation. I suppose that to strangers there would have been nothing at all dis tasteful in what he said. Most persons would have pronounced him a clever, but rather egotistic man. To her I know that there were a lightness and unreality in his manner and conversation which pained her inexpressibly. She answered him quietly and composedly, but I know that she was glad when he went away. She remained where she was then, and did not look round; but when I went to her, the hand which she took away from her eyes (as if she had been shading them from the sun) was wet with tears. That was the only time that I ever saw her weep for her trouble; and it was for the change in him, not for the loss to her.

She kept almost entirely in her own cabin after that, pleading sickness. Winny was also very much occupied with her little girl, who was very sick. I saw a good deal of Ronald, and noticed how restless and excited, how impatient and irritable he was. The ship seemed too small for him, its pace too slow. Sometimes he avoided me, sometimes he sought me out half defiantly.

Then we encountered a great storm, from which the ship came out waterlogged, a drifting wreck. After that there were dreadful days of heat and calm; the sea shone and the sun burned, and the heart sickened with hope delayed. The men worked at the pumps, and we all watched for a sail. We were far from land, but we might keep up for some days yet, the captain said, if we had quiet weather. Meanwhile we slowly drifted, and we hoped that we were drifting landward.

Winny's little girl was very ill, and her mother rarely left her. Ronald showed himself always more excited and impatient of inactivity. His wife told me that he hardly slept at all, and begged me to give him a sedative. I did so at last; but the result was unfortunate, for the medicine made him more wakeful still; and the next day, which was one of fiery heat, found him worse than ever. He would not be advised or controlled; he exposed himself with mad imprudence to the whole force of the sun, and by night time he was, not at all to my astonishment, struck down by Some strange illness, whether a form of sunstroke or of brain fever I could not tell. He was at first unconscious, then NEW SERIES.-VOL. LII., No. 1.

3

His

wildly delirious, and knew no one. wife could not leave her little girl, and I was obliged to have some help. Dora offered hers. He did not recognize her, and in the distracted state of every one on board it would have been difficult to find any one else fit for the work. I think she was glad to have it, and I was glad to give it to her. So we nursed him together, she and I, for more than one day and night; while the ship drifted, drifted, and the captain said we drew nearer land. Ronald talked wildly of the long past, when he was a boy at school of his mother and his sisters; but of Winny or of Dora he said not a word.

At last there came a night when he opened his eyes and looked about him observantly. I saw the look and knew that a change had come. This was the old Ronald that we had known. In the mystic land in which he had wandered he had somehow come across the lost tracks and followed them. How could we welcome bim back to a world which was no longer the same?

"Dora!" he murmured, "Dora !''

She turned her startled gaze to mine (for she stood beside his bed), and I looked at her imperatively. She understood what I meant to say, and obeyed

She gave him her hand, and he clasped. it in both his own. Then his eyes closed, he seemed to be satisfied. But she gazed at me imploringly. "Do not go away,' she whispered.

That was indeed a strange night for me and for her; for him it was, I think, a happy one. He spoke now and then ; and she answered him in her soft, clear tones, for he would not be satisfied otherwise. "It is beautiful to hear your voice in the darkness," he said; "it comes to me like something I have waited a lifetime for. Speak to me again. Tell me you are here." And she answered him softly but distinctly, "I am here." She