pening of the
quietness that had fallen upon it. In the master of the house there was
no visible difference. There are some men who seen from year to year
seem as unchanging as the sphinx. It is only after a long period that
any difference in them can be detected and then they suddenly appear
broken and aged. The fair lady of the manor was as fair as ever, but
with the pale, tremulous fairness of a late star in the grey dawn of a
new day in which it will have no part. Her bloom, her roundness, her
gaiety--all these were gone. She spent more time than ever in the room
which, waiting for its roving tenant, became more and more like a death
chamber. The silence there was not now broken by her sobs even, for it
was with dry-eyed grief that she watched and waited for her boy, these
days--watched and waited and prayed. Ah, how she prayed for him, body
and soul! Prayed that wherever he might be, he might be kept from harm
and strengthened to resist temptation.

Was it her agonized petitions that kept him to the straight and narrow
path of duty during those two years amid uncongenial surroundings and
hard conditions?

Who knows?

Yet the chair and the desk and the books and the vases of fresh flowers
on the mantel, and the fire-wood resting on the shining andirons ready
for a match, and the reading lamp with trimmed wick and bright chimney
on the table, and the canopied white bed still waited, in vain, his
coming.

Many months had passed since the name of Eddie had been spoken between
husband and wife, but though she held her peace, like Mary of old, like
Mary too, she pondered many things in her heart. He, loving her well,
but having no aptitude for divining woman's ways, indulged in secret
satisfaction, for he took her silence to mean that she was coming to her
senses, and regarding the boy as he did. That she no longer importuned
him to enquire into Edgar's whereabouts with the intention of inviting
him home was a source of especial relief to him.

Then, upon a day two years after she had triumphantly placed Eddie's
book and letter in his hands, it was his turn to bring her a letter.

"You see the bad penny has turned up again," he remarked, dryly.

She looked questioningly at the folded sheet. Its post-mark was Fortress
Monroe and the hand-writing was not familiar to her.

"What is it?" she asked.

"A letter from Dr. Archer. He's surgeon at the fort, you know. Read it.
It is about Edgar."

With shaking hands an