e past week had been but the lightning's
arrowy course scathing where it illumined!

She felt as if this last blow that had struck her down from the height
of hope to the depth of despair had broken her heart, as if the power of
reaction was gone, and she mourned as one who would not be comforted.

While she sat thus the door opened, and before she was aware of his
presence, Herbert Greyson entered the room and came softly to her side.
Ere she could speak to him he dropped upon one knee at her feet and
bowed his young head lowly over the hand that he took and pressed to his
lips. Then he arose and stood before her. This was not unnatural or
exaggerated; it was his way of expressing the reverential sympathy and
compassion he felt for her strange, life-long martyrdom.

"Herbert, you here? Why, we only got your letter this morning," she
said, in tones of gentle inquiry, as she arose and placed a chair for
him.

"Yes, I could not bear to stay away from you at such a time; I came up
in the same mail-coach that brought my letter; but I kept myself out of
Traverse's sight, for I could not bear to intrude upon you in the first
hour of your disappointment," said Herbert, in a broken voice.

"Oh, that need not have kept you away, dear boy! I did not cry much; I
am used to trouble, you know; I shall get over this also--after a little
while--and things will go on in the old way," said Marah Rocke,
struggling to repress the rising emotion that, however, overcame her,
for, dropping her head upon her "sailor boy's" shoulder, she burst into
a flood of tears and wept plenteously.

"Dear mother, be comforted!" he said; "dear mother, be comforted!"

CHAPTER XIII.

MARAH'S MEMORIES.

In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein,
And gazing down with a timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face.
--Whittier.

"Dear Marah, I cannot understand your strong attachment to that bronzed
and grizzled old man, who has, besides, treated you so barbarously,"
said Herbert.

"Is he bronzed and gray?" asked Marah, looking up with gentle pity in
her eyes and tone.

"Why, of course he is. He is sixty-two."

"He was forty-five when I first knew him, and he was very handsome then.
At least, I thought him the very perfection of manly strength and beauty
and goodness. True, it was the mature, warm beauty of the Indian summer,
for he was more than mid