s a beautiful day--one of those rare days
which gladden the drear northern spring and remind dwellers in Boston
that they live under the same latitude under which Naples idles. A turn
of the Gulf Stream and the descendants of the Puritans would lose the
last vestige of their inherited consciences and bask in the sun like
happy animals. But though the sky was violet, the bright sunlight was
cold.

Maggie walked briskly along, by the water park, out by the great houses
in Longwood, to the light bridge which swept over the river to
Cambridge. There were but few people walking on the embankment this cold
day; a stream of carriages bright with glistening harness rolled by. A
barge, filled with a merry party, and drawn by four horses, aroused
Maggie from her thoughts, which had been of Geoffrey. She had not seen
him since the evening of the King's drawing-room, when he had broken his
sword before the monarch, and had returned his empty title to the dry
fountain of honor. Her suspicions of him had died away long before she
had received his letter by Reynolds's hand. She had heard of the
_emeute_ with an aching heart, and from her distant home in America she
had watched the proceedings of the trial eagerly. Her life had died away
within her when she read of the sentence of the prisoners, and knew that
the man she loved was shut up from the world for fifteen years, like a
common felon. And he owed his liberty to her, and yet he did not know
it. He should have known it, by instinct, she thought. She had fancied
that she knew the moment when he had made good his escape. Of a sudden,
one day, during her father's absence in the yacht, the load from her
soul had rolled away. She felt that he was free, and speeding over the
sea to meet her. Now that he was arrived in America, she had seen him
but once, and he had not spoken to her; he had bowed, with a stern, set
face, and left the apartment. Had her cruel words there on the cliff by
Ripon village cut away his love for her? Then the message which she had
sent to him by his servant: "Tell your master that I am to be married."
She had almost forgotten that. But his heart should have told him what
she meant by that, she argued. "She was to be married, if only he wished
it." Why did he not come to her? Could it be possible that he thought
she was to marry another?

Such thoughts the rush and jingle of the great barge had interrupted.
The barge rushed by, and looking up the strait she saw