d nothing but the gentlest sisterly confidence and regard.

'No, but I suffered agony enough till I heard it. When, one lives
through such dark days as these were, Gladys, faith in humankind becomes
very difficult. I feared lest your scruples might be overcome.'

'I am sorry you had such a fear for me, Walter, even for a moment, but
perhaps it was natural. And when will you come back from this dreadful
Australia, did you say?'

'Perhaps never.'

He did not allow himself to look at her face, because he did not dare;
but he saw her pick the berries from a red bunch she had pulled, and
drop them one by one to the ground. Never had he loved her as he did
then in the anguish of farewell, and he called himself a fool for not
having gone, as prudence prompted, leaving only a written message
behind.

'And is that all you have to say to me, Walter, that you are going to
Australia--on the fourteenth, is it?--and that you will never come
back?'

'It is all I dare to say,' he answered, nor did he look at her yet,
though there was a whimsical, tender little smile on the lovely mouth
which might have won his gaze.

'And you are quite determined to go alone?'

'Well, you see,' he began, glad of anything to get on commonplace
ground, 'I might get plenty of fellows, but it's an awful bore, unless
they happen just to be the right sort.'

'Yes, that is quite true, there are so few nice fellows,' said Gladys
innocently. 'Don't you think you might get a nice girl to go with you,
if you asked her properly?'

Then Walter flashed a sad, proud look at her--a look which Gladys
fearlessly met, and thought at that very moment that she had never seen
him look so well, so handsome, so worthy of regard. Sorrow had wrought
her perfect work in him, and he had emerged from the shadow of blighted
hope and frustrated ambition a gentler, humbler, ay, and a holier man
than he had yet been. Suddenly that look of sad, quiet wonder, which had
a touch of reproach in it, quite broke Gladys down, and she made no
effort to stem the tears which might make him sad or glad, she did not
care.

'Gladys,' he began hurriedly, 'it is more than man is fit to bear, to
see these tears. If they mean nothing more than a natural regret at
parting from one whom circumstances have strangely thrown in your way,
perhaps too often, tell me so, and I shall thank you, even for that
kindly regret; but if they mean that I may come back some day--worthier,
perhaps, than I