beneath his breath. "_Juliet_!" It was a
summoning cry, as if he would call the dead girl's spirit from the
unseen world. He stretched out his hand as a prisoner at the bar.
"Little girl! Little girl! I was faithful to you. I gave you all that
was mine to give..."

The wide eyes stared on. The lips smiled; a blank, unanswering smile.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

"Cumly, _September 30, 19--_.

"Dear Captain Blair,

"Martin is engaged to Grizel Dundas. She is giving up thirty thousand a
year to marry him, and he is going to let her do it. I sent Dorothea a
cutting from the newspaper, which no doubt you have seen, so I need not
enlarge upon the details of a `millionaire's extraordinary will,' and
the subsequent `Romantic engagement. Millionaire's heiress gives up her
fortune to marry well-known novelist.' (See _Morning Post_.)

"The marriage is to be in January, and we are house-hunting, answering
letters of congratulation, looking at patterns, discussing dresses and
wallpapers, and hats, and carpets, and what to do with drawing-room
walls, and where to find new places for such trifles as sideboards, and
buffets, and bookcases, and maiden sisters... They'll fit in somewhere,
I suppose, and look fairly comfortable and at home in their new
positions, but it will take a little settling down! The sideboard was
made especially to fit a niche here; the maiden sister thought she was,
too, but they've both got to move, and look distrustfully upon new
corners.

"Grizel spent a week with us, then went off on a round of visits. She
has left the old house and given up her claim to the money at once, so
as to avoid all appearance of `making a purse' for Martin's benefit.
They are preposterously happy, and have each explained to me most
carefully that the other is _so_ anxious for me to live with them, and
confessed that from their _own_ standpoint it might perhaps be better--
for a time at least ... and I have relieved their feelings, poor dears,
by proclaiming at once that nothing could bribe me, either sooner or
later.

"Now, Lonely Man, go down on your knees and thank Providence, fasting,
that you are not a woman! You've done it heaps of times before, but do
it once again. No man in the world could find himself in such a
position as I am in at this moment, at twenty-six, _past_, after doing
my duty in my appointed place for a painstaking eight years. For what
have I gained--in what single way have I prepared my