e than the briefest time in this changing
world. It belonged to the world everlasting.

"Will you go back, dear, and ask Brian to come to me? I would like to
talk a little, alone, with my old friend."

Agatha obeyed. When she had delivered her message, Mr. Locke Harper rose
without speaking. She saw him go into the drawing-room and close the
door; then she came back to her husband.

For more than two hours Agatha and Nathanael sat, not liking to go in
without being summoned. At last they ventured to pass the door. The
silence within was so death-like that it half frightened them.

"I wish she would call," Agatha whispered. "She looked so strangely
white when she spoke to me. Hush! is not that some one stirring? I must
knock."

She did so, but there was no answer. At last, trembling all over, she
caught hold of her husband's hand and made him enter.

The room was quite still--dimly-lighted--for the fire had been suffered
to burn itself almost out. Anne sat in her arm-chair, with Brian
kneeling beside her, his arms clasping her waist, and hers linked behind
his neck. Neither moved, or seemed to notice anything; and the two
young people, greatly moved by the scene, were gliding away, when a last
glimmer of the fire showed them Anne Valery's face. They saw it--grasped
one another's hands with an awe-struck meaning--and stayed.

In a minute or two Anne faintly spoke.

"I think there is some one near? Is it Agatha?"

The young girl flung herself on Anne's hand.--"It is I--and my husband.
May we stay? We, too, loved you, dear, dear Anne?"

"I know that! One minute, just one minute, Brian."

She loosed her clasp of him a little; the other two came near, she
kissed them both, and bade "God bless them." Then raising herself up and
speaking with all her strength, she said,

"You will bear witness, and say to them all, that if I had married, none
but Brian Locke Harper would ever have been my husband: and therefore I
have left to him Thornhurst, and all I have in the world, in token of my
love and reverence--just as if--I had been--his wife."

With the last words, uttered very feebly, Anne sank back into her old
attitude. She lay there many minutes, her face beautiful in its perfect
rest. The other face--his face--was altogether hidden. But they saw
that, as his arms grasped her round, every muscle was quivering. The
convulsion grew so strong that even Anne felt it. She opened her eyes,
and tried to speak again.

"