each other in a
different light.

One Monday morning in March, at the close of the three years in
question, as Richard mounted the outside staircase leading to his
studio in the extension, the servant-maid beckoned to him from the
kitchen window.

Margaret had failed to come to the studio the previous Saturday
afternoon. Richard had worked at cross-purposes and returned to his
boarding-house vaguely dissatisfied, as always happened to him on
those rare occasions when she missed the appointment; but he had
thought little of the circumstance. Nor had he been disturbed on
Sunday at seeing the Slocum pew vacant during both services. The
heavy snow-storm which had begun the night before accounted for at
least Margaret's absence.

"Mr. Slocum told me to tell you that he shouldn't be in the yard
to-day," said the girl. "Miss Margaret is very ill."

"Ill!" Richard repeated, and the smile with which he had leaned
over the rail towards the window went out instantly on his lip.

"Dr. Weld was up with her until five o'clock this morning," said
the girl, fingering the corner of her apron. "She's that low."

"What is the matter?"

"It's a fever."

"What kind of fever?"

"I don't mind me what the doctor called it. He thinks it come from
something wrong with the drains."

"He didn't say typhoid?"

"Yes, that's the name of it."

Richard ascended the stairs with a slow step, and a moment
afterwards stood stupidly in the middle of the workshop. "Margaret is
going to die," he said to himself, giving voice to the dark
foreboding that had instantly seized upon him, and in a swift vision
he saw the end of all that simple, fortunate existence which he had
lived without once reflecting it could ever end. He mechanically
picked up a tool from the table, and laid it down again. Then he
seated himself on the low bench between the windows. It was
Margaret's favorite place; it was not four days since she sat there
reading to him. Already it appeared long ago,--years and years ago.
He could hardly remember when he did not have this heavy weight on
his heart. His life of yesterday abruptly presented itself to him as
a reminiscence; he saw now how happy that life had been, and how
lightly he had accepted it. It took to itself all that precious
quality of things irrevocably lost.

The clamor of the bell in the South Church striking noon, and the
shrilling of the steam-whistle softened by the thick-falling snow,
roused Richard from hi