might make, they wished to do it in his absence. He felt a vehement yearning to touch Hester's hand, to see her look at him once more, and to hear her speak to him; but she was clinging to her father, looking into his face, and speaking to him broken words of gladness. He found that he had no right there any longer, though he had been the messenger of the glad tidings; and with a quiet farewell, which scarcely fell upon their inattentive ears, he left them alone with one another and their new joy.

CHAPTER XV.

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.

ROBERT WALDRON lingered a day or two, lounging about the dull little town, but not daring to force himself again into the presence of John Morley, unless he gave some sign that a second interview would be welcome. He had expected that they would have returned at once to England, but no places were taken in the diligence; and he could not make up his mind to leave them there with an uncertainty as to what they meant to do. He wished to see Hester alone, but now she accompanied her father everywhere that he went. The sultry heat of the summer was quite gone, and the clear bright autumn air breathed fresh exhilaration into veins which had grown languid through the fervour of the sunshine. Robert could see them from his window at the hotel whenever they quitted the house: John Morley, with a new vigour and strength, his white head held erect, his tread firm and steady; and Hester, herself again, yet more than her former self, hopeful, bright, and

courageous, ready to face any future, now that the heavy pressure of exile was passing away. What could they be about to do? He was undergoing a sore travail of heart, crucifying his best and most cherished hope. The gulf between him and Hester was too wide now, even to his own eyes, for it ever to be bridged over; and he was striving to look across it, with a willingness to see her happy in an Eden to which he could find no entrance.

At last he bethought himself that he must go. The Hester who belonged to him was pining away in Little Aston, and he knew that she would soon be lost to him for ever. Every hour that he wasted here, he lost some small tender trace of his child's character, which would be all that remained to him of her in a little while. Carl would be with her, he thought, bitterly, and Carl was loved more dearly than he was. Yet for his own sake he should be near her, to work out the whole of the heavy penance. But he could not leave without one effort to see Hester again, and to ask if he could render no help to her or her father. Fortunately he saw John Morley start out alone, the third evening after his interview with him,

and make his way towards the rock which overlooked the town; and in a few minutes afterwards he presented himself at the widow Limet's door.

The widow Limet was giving Hester a lesson in spinning, in the dark cool room at the back of her shop, and the burr of the wheel made his step inaudible. He trode cautiously, and looked in through the half-open door for some time, glad to see Hester, while he remained unseen. Her face had caught a tinge of colour, the richer bloom of a warm climate, and her eyes had brightened from their long period of gloom. She smiled more readily and talked more gaily, but still with an air of gravity, as if laughter had been too long a stranger to her lips to play about them as about other girlish faces. He fancied, but it could only have been fancy, that she had borrowed some of the coquettish graces of the country-women about her; her dress, the slight toss of her pretty head, the movement of her little foot upon the treadle, her whole attitude, had just the touch of careless consciousness of beauty which was the only charm she had needed. He knew now how well she would have played her part in his life of luxury and

elegance; and he stood watching her, his heart contracting with a very bitter regret when the widow Limet caught sight of him, and betrayed his presence by a little vivacious

shriek.

"I am about to return to England," he said, advancing with the pleasant graciousness of manner which he had at command; "and I called to inquire if mademoiselle or her father have any commission there. For heaven's sake, Hester," he added, addressing her in English, "let me speak to you once more before I go. I cannot leave you thus."

"You can speak to me here," she answered; "no one will understand you but me."

She had pushed aside her spinning-wheel, and risen to offer him her hand, which he had not touched for so long a time, and which he held in his like a treasure he would not willingly relinquish, though he was compelled to preserve an outward calmness.

"Come at least with me into yonder garden," he urged. "I cannot speak to you freely, and I dare not look at you while this woman is standing by."

The garden was a small square space, in

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