pelled her enthusiasm. "Mrs. Saulsbury did not exactly
express a wish to see you."

"Oh!"

"In fact, when that was suggested to her--I am sure I need hardly say
that I at once suggested it--she thought, and perhaps wisely, that it
would be better you should not meet."

Minola drew back, and stood as Mr. Heron had been standing near the
chimney-piece. She did not speak.

"But Mrs. Saulsbury begged me to convey to you the assurance of her
entire and cordial forgiveness."

Minola bowed gravely.

"And her hope that you will be happy in life and be guided toward true
ends, and find that peace which it has been her privilege to find."

Minola bore all this without a word.

"What shall I say to her from you?" he asked. "Miss Grey, remember that
she is dying."

The caution was not needed.

"Say that I thank her," said Minola in a low, subdued tone. "Say that,
after what flourish your nature will, Mr. Sheppard. I suppose I was
wrong as much as she. I suppose it was often my fault that we did not
get on better. Say that I am deeply grieved to hear that she is so
dangerously ill, but that I hope--oh, so sincerely!--that she may yet
recover."

Mr. Sheppard looked into her eyes with puzzled wonder. Was she speaking
in affected meekness, or in irony, as was her wont? Was the proud,
rebellious girl really so gentle and subdued? Could it be that she took
thus humbly Mrs. Saulsbury's pardon? Yes, it seemed all genuine. There
was no constraint on the lines of her lips; no scorn in her eyes. In
truth, the sympathetic and generous heart of the girl was touched to the
quick. The prospect of death sanctified the woman who had been so hard
to her, and turned her cold, self-complacent pardon into a blessing. If
the dying are often the most egotistic and self-complacent of all human
creatures, and are apt to make of their very condition a fresh title to
lord it for the moment over the living--as if none had ever died before,
and none would die after them, and therefore the world must pay special
attention and homage to them--if this is so, Minola did not then know it
or think about it.

The one thing on earth which Mr. Sheppard most loved to see was woman
amenable to authority. He longed more passionately than ever to make
Minola his wife.

"There is something else on which I should like to have your permission
to speak," he said; and his thin lips grew a little tremulous. "But I
could come another time, if you preferred."