ve got an appointment as
surgeon in the Turkish contingent, and shall be off in an hour."

"To Turkey! to the war?"

"Yes. It's a long time since I have seen any fighting. I am quite out of
practice in gunshot wounds. There is the medicine. Good-bye! You will
shake hands once, for the sake of our late cholera work together."

Grace held out her hand mechanically across the counter, and he took it.
But she did not look into his face. Only she said, half to herself,--

"Well, better so. I have no doubt you will be very useful among them."

"Confound the icicle!" thought Tom. "I really believe that she wants to
get rid of me." And he would have withdrawn his hand in a pet: but she
held it still.

Quaint it was; those two strong natures, each loving the other better
than anything else on earth, and yet parted by the thinnest pane of ice,
which a single look would have melted. She longing to follow that man
over the wide world, slave for him, die for him; he longing for the
least excuse for making a fool of himself, and crying, "Take me, as I
take you, without a penny, for better, for worse!" If their eyes had but
met! But they did not meet; and the pane of ice kept them asunder as
surely as a wall of iron.

Was it that Tom was piqued at her seeming coldness: or did he expect,
before he made any advances, that she should show that she wished at
least for his respect, by saying something to clear up the ugly question
which lay between them? Or was he, as I suspect, so ready to melt, and
make a fool of himself, that he must needs harden his own heart by help
of the devil himself? And yet there are excuses for him. It would have
been a sore trial to any man's temper to quit Aberalva in the belief
that he left fifteen hundred pounds behind him. Be that as it may, he
said carelessly, after a moment's pause,--

"Well, farewell! And, by the bye, about that little money matter. The
month of which you spoke once was up yesterday. I suppose I am not
worthy yet; so I shall be humble, and wait patiently. Don't hurry
yourself, I beg of you, on my account."

She snatched her hand from his without a word, and rushed out of the
shop.

He returned to his packing, whistling away as shrill as any blackbird.

Little did he think that Grace's heart was bursting, as she hurried down
the street, covering her face in her veil, as if every one would espy
her dark secret in her countenance.

But she did not go home to hysterics and vain