And how do you come to be here?" he asked.

She told him how she had nursed her father in his long illness, and when
he died, and she was left alone, had taken to nurse others, partly from
habit, partly to be of some service in the world; partly, it might be,
for amusement. "There's no accounting for taste," said she. And she told
him how she went largely to the houses of old friends, as the need
arose; and how she was thus doubly welcome, as an old friend first, and
then as an experienced nurse, to whom doctors would confide the gravest
case.

"And, indeed, it's a mere farce my being here for poor Maria," she
continued; "but your father takes her ailments to heart, and I cannot
always be refusing him. We are great friends, your father and I; he was
very kind to me long ago--ten years ago."

A strange stir came in John's heart. All this while had he been thinking
only of himself? All this while, why had he not written to Flora? In
penitential tenderness, he took her hand, and, to his awe and trouble,
it remained in his, compliant. A voice told him this was Flora, after
all--told him so quietly, yet with a thrill of singing.

"And you never married?" said he.

"No, John; I never married," she replied.

The hall clock striking two recalled them to the sense of time.

"And now," said she, "you have been fed and warmed, and I have heard
your story, and now it's high time to call your brother."

"O!" cried John, chapfallen; "do you think that absolutely necessary?"

"_I_ can't keep you here; I am a stranger," said she. "Do you want to
run away again? I thought you had enough of that."

He bowed his head under the reproof. She despised him, he reflected, as
he sat once more alone; a monstrous thing for a woman to despise a man;
and, strangest of all, she seemed to like him. Would his brother despise
him, too? And would his brother like him?

And presently the brother appeared, under Flora's escort; and, standing
afar off beside the doorway, eyed the hero of this tale.

"So this is you?" he said at length.

"Yes, Alick, it's me--it's John," replied the elder brother feebly.

"And how did you get in here?" inquired the younger.

"O, I had my pass-key," says John.

"The deuce you had!" said Alexander. "Ah, you lived in a better world!
There are no pass-keys going now."

"Well, father was always averse to them," sighed John. And the
conversation then broke down, and the brothers looked askance at one
another i