for, for Grace will always be my care. Whatever
happens in the future, I think I can promise as much as that."

"Ay, ay! I remember when she was a little thing she always called
herself Archie's wife. Well, well, the mother must bring on Clara now:
it would be a shame to separate you two. Look, there is your train, my
boy! Jump in, and God bless you! You will come down to the wedding of
course, and bring Grace."

"Archie's wife." It was these two words that were keeping him so wide
awake in the rushing darkness. A dusky flush mounted to the young
man's forehead as he pondered over them.

He knew himself better now. Only a few weeks, scarcely more than a
fortnight, had passed since Grace had given him that hint; but each
day since then had done the work of years. Caught at the rebound
indeed, and that so securely and strongly that the man's heart could
never waver from its fixed purpose again.

Now it was that he wondered at his blindness; that he began to
question with a perfect anguish of doubt whether he should be too
late; whether his vacillation and that useless dream of his would
hinder the fulfilment of what was now his dearest hope.

Would he ever bring her to believe that he had never really loved
before,--not, at least, as he could love now? Would he ever dare to
tell her so, when she had known and understood that first stray fancy
of his for Nan's sweet face?

Now, as day after day he visited the cottage and talked apart with her
mother, his eyes would follow Phillis wistfully. Once the girl had
looked up from her work and caught that long, watchful glance; and
then she had grown suddenly very pale, and a pained expression crossed
her face, as though she had been troubled.

Since that night when the young vicar had stood bare-headed on the
snowy steps, and had told Phillis laughingly that one day she would
find out for herself that all men were masterful, and she had run down
the steps flashing back that disdainful look at him, he had felt there
was a change in her manner to him.

They had been such good friends of late; it had become a habit with
him to turn to Phillis when he wanted sympathy. A silent, scarcely
perceptible understanding had seemed to draw them together; but in one
moment, at a word, a mere light jest of his that meant nothing, the
girl had become all at once reserved, frozen up, impenetrable even to
friendship.

In vain he strove to win her back to her old merry talk. Her frank