she loved
him. Nay,--he had so ceased already. There must be no more laying of
her head upon his shoulder, no more twisting of her fingers through
his locks, no more looking into his eyes, no more amorous pressing
of her lips against his own. Much as she loved him she must remember
now that such outward signs of love as these would not befit her.
"Walter," she said, "I am so glad to see you! And yet I do not know
but what it would have been better that you should have stayed away."

"Why should it have been better? It would have been unnatural not to
have met each other."

"So I thought. Why should not friends endure to say good-bye, even
though their friendship be as dear as ours? I told Aunt Sarah that
I should be angry with myself afterwards if I feared to tell you to
come."

"There is nothing to fear,--only that it is so wretched an ending,"
said he.

"In one way I will not look on it as an ending. You and I cannot be
married, Walter; but I shall always have your career to look to, and
shall think of you as my dearest friend. I shall expect you to write
to me;--not at first, but after a year or so. You will be able to
write to me then as though you were my brother."

"I shall never be able to do that."

"Oh yes;--that is, if you will make the effort for my sake. I do not
believe but what people can manage and mould their own wills if they
will struggle hard enough. You must not be unhappy, Walter."

"I am not so wise or self-confident as you, Mary. I shall be unhappy.
I should be deceiving myself if I were to tell myself otherwise.
There is nothing before me to make me happy. When I came home there
was very little that I cared for, though I had the prospect of this
money and thought that my cares in that respect were over. Then I
met you, and the whole world seemed altered. I was happy even when
I found how badly I had been treated. Now all that has gone, and I
cannot think that I shall be happy again."

"I mean to be happy, Walter."

"I hope you may, dear."

"There are gradations in happiness. The highest I ever came to yet
was when you told me that you loved me." When she said that, he
attempted to take her hand, but she withdrew from him, almost without
a sign that she was doing so. "I have not quite lost that yet," she
continued, "and I do not mean to lose it altogether. I shall always
remember that you loved me; and you will not forget that I too loved
you."

"Forget it?--no, I don't exactly th