with a bitter smile. "I can
only tell you he has not forgiven me."

"Bless me!" says Lord Sartoris; "then, I suppose, I haven't a chance."

He is disheartened by her words, and goes very slowly on his way
towards his nephew's room. When they are once more face to face, they
pause and look with uncertainty upon each other. Then the older man
holds out his hands beseechingly.

"I have come to demand your forgiveness," he says, with deep entreaty.
"Dorian--grant it!--I am very old----"

In an instant Dorian's arm is round his neck, as it used to be in the
days long ago, before the dark cloud had rolled between them.

"Not another word, or I shall never forgive you!" says Branscombe,
tenderly, with the old smile upon his lips. And Sartoris, strong,
obstinate, self-willed man that he is, lays his head down upon his
"boy's" shoulder, and sobs aloud.

CHAPTER XXXV.

"Oh, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful
In the contempt and anger of her lips."--_Twelfth Night._

The dark day is growing colder and more drear. The winds are sighing
sadly. A shivering sobbing breeze, that rushes in a mournful fashion
through the naked twigs, tells one the year is drawing to a close, and
that truly it is "faint with cold, and weak with old."

Clarissa, riding along the forest path that leads to Sartoris, feels
something akin to pleasure in the sound of the rushing torrent that
comes from above and falls headlong into the river that runs on her
right hand.

There is, too, a desolation in the scene that harmonizes with her own
sad thoughts. She has watched the summer leaves and flowers decay, but
little thought her own hopes and longings should have died with them.
Is she never to know peace, or joy, or content again? On her "rests
remembrance like a ban:" she cannot shake it off.

"Rest! rest! Oh, give me rest and peace!" she cries aloud to her soul,
but no rest cometh. The world seems colorless, without tint or
purpose. She would gladly forget, if that might be, but it seems
impossible to her.

"Ourselves we cannot recreate,
Nor get our souls to the same key
Of the remembered harmony."

The past--that is, her happy past--seems gone; the present is full of
grief; the future has nothing to offer. This fact comes to her, and,
with her eyes full of tears, she turns the corner and finds herself
face to face with Horace Branscombe.

The old smile is on his face; he comes to her and holds out both his
hands to tak