n
who lay dying beyond the door. For him whom they all loved--whose last
hours they were were to soothe. Wars and schisms may part our bodies,
but stronger ties unite our souls. Through Silas Whipple, through his
mother, Virginia knew that she was woven of one piece with Stephen
Brice. In a thousand ways she was reminded, lest she drive it from her
belief. She might marry another, and that would not matter.

She sank again into his chair, and gave herself over to the thoughts
crowding in her heart. How the threads of his life ran next to hers, and
crossed and recrossed them. The slave auction, her dance with him, the
Fair, the meeting at Mr. Brinsmade's gate,--she knew them all. Her love
and admiration for his mother. Her dreams of him--for she did dream
of him. And now he had saved Clarence's life that she might marry her
cousin. Was it true that she would marry Clarence? That seemed to
her only a dream. It had never seemed real. Again she glanced at the
signature in the book, as if fascinated by the very strength of it. She
turned over a few pages of the book, "Supposing the defendant's counsel
essays to prove by means of--" that was his writing again, a marginal,
note. There were marginal notes on every page--even the last was covered
with them, And then at the end, "First reading, February, 1858. Second
reading, July, 1858. Bought with some of money obtained by first article
for M. D." That capacity for work, incomparable gift, was what she had
always coveted the most. Again she rested her elbows on the desk and her
chin on her hands, and sighed unconsciously.

She had not heard the step on the stair. She had not seen the door
open. She did not know that any one wage in the room until she heard his
voice, and then she thought that she was dreaming.

"Miss Carvel!"

"Yes?" Her head did not move. He took a step toward her.

"Miss Carvel!"

Slowly she raised her face to his, unbelief and wonder in her
eyes,--unbelief and wonder and fright. No; it could not be he. But
when she met the quality of his look, the grave tenderness of it, she
trembled, and our rendered her own to the page where his handwriting
quivered and became a blur.

He never knew the effort it cost her to rise and confront him. She
herself had not measured or fathomed the power which his very person
exhaled. It seemed to have come upon him suddenly. He needed not to have
spoken for her to have felt that. What it was she could not tell. She
knew