as much harm as the other. Go home now and stay
there; and don't do anything more, for heaven's sake, until you hear
from me."

Windham went home, and was very miserable, as may be supposed. Hearing
nothing for some time, he could not bear it, and wrote to Mary that he
honored and admired her, and thought everything of her that he ever had
or could. In a week he got this reply:

"Mary Mandison has received Philip Windham's letter, and can only reply
that there is nothing to be said."

This stung him more deeply than silence, and he wrote that he was going
to see her on a certain day, and begged her not to deny him. He went at
the time, and she saw him, simply sitting still, and hearing what he had
to say. He hardly knew what to say then, but vowed and protested, and
finally complained of her coldness and cruelty. She replied that she was
not cold or cruel, but only, as she had told him, there was nothing to
be said. In the end he found this was true, and rushed away in despair.

Mary had seemed calm; but when her mother came in that afternoon and
looked for her, she found her in her room, lying on her face.

When she knew who it was, she raised herself silently, looked in her
mother's face a moment, put her arms about her neck, and hid her hot,
dry eyes there as she used to do when a child.

Late that night those two were alone together in the same place, and,
before they parted, the mother said:

"You were always my brave child, and you are going to be my brave Mary
still."

And Mary answered with a low cry:

"Yes--yes; but not now--not now!"

For a good while Windham felt the sensation of having run headlong upon
a blank wall and been flung back and crippled. But the feeling wore
itself out as the months passed.

It was nearly a year before he heard from Dr. Saxon, and he had given up
looking for anything from him, when he received a cold note, inviting
him to call at the doctor's home, if he chose, at a certain date and
hour. At the time set he went to the city, and rang the doctor's bell as
the hour was striking.

[Illustration: "'AGNES, DO YOU KNOW?' HE ASKED. AND SHE ANSWERED, 'YES.'"]

He was shown into the library, and when the door closed behind him, he
fell back against it. Dr. Saxon was not the only person in the room; at
the farther end sat Agnes Maine. She knew nothing of his coming; and
when she glanced round and saw him, she stood up and faced him, with her
hands crossed before her, her br