like, with her lips, and called me by my Christian name. "God
bless you, Walter!" she said. "Wait here alone and compose yourself--I
had better not stay for both our sakes--I had better see you go from
the balcony upstairs."

She left the room. I turned away towards the window, where nothing
faced me but the lonely autumn landscape--I turned away to master
myself, before I too left the room in my turn, and left it for ever.

A minute passed--it could hardly have been more--when I heard the door
open again softly, and the rustling of a woman's dress on the carpet
moved towards me. My heart beat violently as I turned round. Miss
Fairlie was approaching me from the farther end of the room.

She stopped and hesitated when our eyes met, and when she saw that we
were alone. Then, with that courage which women lose so often in the
small emergency, and so seldom in the great, she came on nearer to me,
strangely pale and strangely quiet, drawing one hand after her along
the table by which she walked, and holding something at her side in the
other, which was hidden by the folds of her dress.

"I only went into the drawing-room," she said, "to look for this. It
may remind you of your visit here, and of the friends you leave behind
you. You told me I had improved very much when I did it, and I thought
you might like----"

She turned her head away, and offered me a little sketch, drawn
throughout by her own pencil, of the summer-house in which we had first
met. The paper trembled in her hand as she held it out to me--trembled
in mine as I took it from her.

I was afraid to say what I felt--I only answered, "It shall never leave
me--all my life long it shall be the treasure that I prize most. I am
very grateful for it--very grateful to you, for not letting me go away
without bidding you good-bye."

"Oh!" she said innocently, "how could I let you go, after we have
passed so many happy days together!"

"Those days may never return, Miss Fairlie--my way of life and yours
are very far apart. But if a time should come, when the devotion of my
whole heart and soul and strength will give you a moment's happiness,
or spare you a moment's sorrow, will you try to remember the poor
drawing-master who has taught you? Miss Halcombe has promised to trust
me--will you promise too?"

The farewell sadness in the kind blue eyes shone dimly through her
gathering tears.

"I promise it," she said in broken tones. "Oh, don't look at