ourt attention. As I
walked close by her and looked keenly into her face, she cast down her
eyes and half turned away. Surely, I had seen that tall, noble figure
somewhere before, that haughty head; and then with the apparition a
thought struck me--but, no! it couldn't be she! not HERE!

"It is," said my soul, as I turned and walked past her again; "you
missed her once, are you going to miss her again?"

"It is," said my eyes, as they swept her for the third time; "but she
had glorious chestnut hair, and the hair of this woman is--gilded."

"It is she," said my heart; "thank God, it is she!"

So it was that I went up to that tall, shy figure.

"It must be very cold here," I said; "will you not join me in some
supper?"

She assented, and we sought one of the many radiating centres of
festivity in the neighbourhood. She was very tired and cold,--so tired
she seemed hardly to have the spirit to eat, and evidently the cold had
taken tight clutch of her lungs, for she had a cough that went to my
heart to hear, and her face was ghastly pale. When I had persuaded her
to drink a little wine, she grew more animated and spots of suspicious
colour came into her cheeks. So far she had seemed all but oblivious
of my presence, but now she gave me a sweet smile of gratitude, one of
those irradiating transfiguring smiles that change the whole face, and
belong to few faces, the heavenly smile of a pure soul.

Yes, it was she! The woman who sat in front of me was the woman whom I
had met so strangely that day on that solitary moorland, and whom in
prophecy still more strange my soul had declared to be, "now and for
ever and before all worlds the woman God had created for me, and that
unless I could be hers and she mine, there could be no home, no peace,
for either of us so long as we lived--" and now so strangely met again.

Yes, it was she!

For the moment my mind had room for no other thought. I cared not to
conjecture by what devious ways God had brought her to my side. I
cared not what mire her feet had trodden. She had carried her face
pure as a lily through all the foul and sooty air. There was a pure
heart in her voice. Sin is of the soul, and this soul had not sinned!
Let him that is without sin amongst you cast the first stone.

"Why did you dye that wonderful chestnut hair?" I asked her
presently--and was sorry next minute for the pain that shot across her
face, but I just wanted to hint at what I designed