m's girl
came to stay here, and quite by chance she came into your room, and you
thought she was Phil--and gradually your memory has come back."

"And to-day--I have seen my mother's grave--and read her message. It
was a message, wasn't it, Isabella?" He spoke wistfully, almost like a
child.

"Yes; I think she meant it to be a message for you."

"Dear mother! I have thought that Phil was with me--I did not know;
but when I read the dates--it made me remember, and I could not
understand. She has gone--and Phil has gone--and I am here alone."

"No, not alone, dear Francis."

He thought for a while. "But, have I not seen Bill? Who lives here
now? And Goodie?--surely Goodie is real----"

"Yes; Goodie and Robert Gale have been with you all through, but it is
Bill's son who lives here, now."

And so with long pauses, that his shocked mind might grasp it, he told
him the whole sad truth.

And still Philippa neither moved nor spoke. Almost as if in a trance
she watched these two, who seemed to belong to a world in which she had
no part--grey-haired man and grey-haired woman clasping hands across a
gulf of years.

"I sent for you," he said presently, "because I knew you would not lie
to me, and that if I saw you--and I was not mad--that you would be
older. If all those years had passed Phil could not be still almost a
child. I tried to reason it out while I was waiting for you to come.
So that was why Phil never came. My little Phil! I cannot think of
her as dead," he whispered brokenly, "and all our joy in being together
again was nothing but a mistake--a dream. She is not here!" He
repeated the words as though he could hardly grasp their meaning; then
his voice changed as he cried, "Why did they not tell me the truth?
Why did they let me believe that it was Phil?"

"You were not strong enough."

"Not strong enough to know the truth, but only to be deceived," he said
bitterly. "And I did not know! I thought--blind fool!--that it was
Phil! Oh, I was easily duped."

"Don't say that," said Isabella quickly. "I know it must seem like
deception; but, Francis--don't you see--you had waited so long for
Phil--you had never ceased to look for her coming--you could not
understand that she was dead; and when you saw Philippa it was you who
accepted her as Phil. And you were so content, so happy, that it was
impossible to tell you the truth. It would have killed you."

"There are worse things than death