reached town, and he sat thinking of Sissy and of that brief
engagement which had already receded into a shadowy past. "It was a
mistake," he mused, "and she found it out before it was too late. But I
believe her poor little heart has been aching for me, lest she wounded
me too cruelly that night. It wasn't her fault. She would have hid her
fear of me, poor child! if she had been able. And she was so sorry for
me in my trouble! I don't think she could be content to go on her way
and take her happiness now while my life was spoilt and miserable. Poor
little Sissy! she will be glad to know--"

And then he remembered that it was to a dying Sissy that the tidings
of marriage and hope must be uttered, if uttered at all. And he sat
as it were in a dull dream, trying to realize how the life which
in the depths of his poverty had seemed so beautiful and safe was
suddenly cut short, and how Sissy at that moment lay in the darkness,
waiting--waiting--waiting. The noise of the train took up his thought,
and set it to a monotonous repetition of "Waiting at Ashendale! waiting
at Ashendale!" If only she might live till he could reach her! He seemed
to be hurrying onward, yet no nearer. His overwrought brain caught up
the fancy that Death and he were side by side, racing together through
the dark, at breathless, headlong speed, to Sissy, where she waited for
them both.

Outside, the landscape lay dim and small, dwarfed by the presence of the
night. And with the lights burning on its breast, as Sissy saw them in
her half-waking visions, the express rushed southward across the level
blackness of the land, beneath the arch of midnight sky.

CHAPTER LII.

Quand on a trouve ce qu'on cherchait, on n'a pas le temps de le
dire: il faut mourir.--J. JOUBERT.

When the gray of the early morning had changed to golden sunlight, and
the first faint twittering of the birds gave place to fuller melody,
Mrs. Middleton went softly to the window, opened it and fastened it
back. She drew a long breath of the warm air fresh from the beanfields,
and, looking down into the little orchard below, saw Harry Hardwicke,
who stepped forward and looked up at her. She signed to him to wait, and
a couple of minutes later she joined him.

"How is she? How has she passed the night?" he asked eagerly.

"She is no worse. She has lived through it bravely, with one thought.
You were very right to send for Percival."

Hardwicke looked down and co