there
was sorrow at her heart, which bled daily for the sufferings of her
companion.

For time seemed to bring no healing to the wounds of Philip Norton, who,
apparently disgusted with life, had sold out from the army, to settle
down at his own place, Merland Hall, seeing no one, visiting nowhere
save at the Rectory.

But the result was what might have been expected. Philip Norton awoke
one day to the fact that there was happiness for him yet in this world,
and he told himself it would be his duty to devote his life to the
suffering invalid--to the blighted woman who paid penalty for his sin.
And one evening, when the sun was glowing ruddily in the west, Philip
Norton rested his brown hand upon the thin transparent fingers, and
then, in the stillness of the evening, he asked her, in low, earnest
tones, if she would take him as her protector.

"Ada," he said, calmly, "I cannot love. You know all; but I owe you my
life. Will you take that life now, with such devotion as I can attach
to it, such tenderness as time will enable me to weave with it? I know
I am but a broken, disappointed man; but you know my weaknesses and
sufferings; you can help me to get through my journey, and, perhaps, in
time you may learn to love me."

Ere he had finished speaking another trembling, fluttering hand was
raised, to be placed upon his strong arm, and then, leaning forward,
Ada's poor thin pale lips were pressed upon his hand, as one might
salute a king, and then softly whispering to herself the words, "At
last! At last! Thank God!" the invalid sank back in her chair,
fainting from the wild tumult of joyful feelings that, in her then weak
state, seemed almost more than she could bear.

For Ada Lee was dying; not, perhaps, in the ordinary sense of the word,
for she might have lived on for years; but, none the less, she was
fading away. One disappointment she had fought down; but the news of
Norton's death had preyed heavily upon her. Then had come his return,
the shock, the adventures of the wedding-day, and, lastly, the wound.
Her by no means strong constitution had given way beneath this, when, in
addition, there had ever been the pang of hope deferred, and the sick
heart finding no ease.

It was a strangely unimpassioned wooing, that of Philip Norton; but Ada
was content; and at the end of five years, bright, happy of face, and
only slightly more matronly, she came one day into her husband's study,
to find him stern and