ve in vain. What those ties
are I know nothing--I have not asked--but the existence of _some_
obligation I have been given to understand. With certain natures of
truth and duty, that is a barrier impassable. You would be safe, were I
to act out of honour.

I am a fool, I believe; but I am not yet such a fool as not to know
that there is but one man in the world to whom I could write such a
confession. Nothing better prompts it than pure selfishness, I am
aware--but with me that is strong. I have that notion of you that you
would not care to keep what you held _only_ by priority of claim. I may
be wrong in the supposition upon which I am going--yet it is my chance
for life and I cannot yield it up. That were the lady _free_--in
conscience as well as in fact--she might be induced to look favourably
on me. I ought to add, that I believe such a consciousness has never
shaped itself to her mind--the innocence with which she may at first
have entered into some sort of obligation, would not lessen or alter
its truth or stringency to her pure mind. The game is in your own
hands, Linden--so is

Your unworthy friend

JULIUS HARRISON.

P.S.--One thing further I ought to add--that a somewhat delicate state
of nerves and health, over which I have been for some time watching,
would make any rash broaching of this subject very inexpedient and
unsafe. I need not enforce this hint."

CHAPTER XXVI.

The spring opened from day to day, and the apple blossoms were
bursting. Mr. Linden might soon be looked for, and one warm May
afternoon Faith went in to make his room ready. It was the first day
she had been fit for it, and she was yet so little strong that she must
take care of her movements. With slow and unable fingers she did her
pleasant work, and then very tired, sat down in her old reading
window-seat and went into a long dream-meditation. It was pleasant for
a while, in harmony with the summer air and the robins in the maple; it
got round at last into the train of the last weeks. A fruitless reverie
ended in Faith's getting very weary; and she went back to her own room
to put herself on the couch cushions and go to sleep.

Sleep held on its way after a peaceful fashion, yet not so but that
Faith's face shewed traces of her thoughts. Mrs. Derrick came softly
and watched her, and the spring air blew back the curtains and fanned
her, and brushed her hair with its perfumed wings; and one or two honey
bees bu