ilence. So deep that the maid's opening the door made us both
start.

"Miss Halifax--there's a gentleman wanting to see Miss Halifax."

Maud sprung up in her chair, breathless.

"Any one you know, is it?"

"No, Miss."

"Show the gentleman in."

He stood already in the doorway,--tall, brown, bearded. Maud just
glanced at him, then rose, bending stiffly, after the manner of Miss
Halifax of Beechwood.

"Will you be seated? My father--"

"Maud, don't you know me? Where's my mother? I am Guy."

CHAPTER XXXIX

Guy and his mother were together. She lay on a sofa in her
dressing-room; he sat on a stool beside her, so that her arm could rest
on his neck and she could now and then turn his face towards her and
look at it--oh, what a look!

She had had him with her for two whole days--two days to be set against
eight years! Yet the eight years seemed already to have collapsed into
a span of time, and the two days to have risen up a great mountain of
happiness, making a barrier complete against the woeful past, as
happiness can do--thanks to the All-merciful for His mercies. Most
especially for that mercy--true as His truth to the experience of all
pure hearts--that one bright, brief season of joy can outweigh, in
reality and even in remembrance, whole years of apparently interminable
pain.

Two days only since the night Guy came home, and yet it seemed months
ago! Already we had grown familiar to the tall, bearded figure; the
strange step and voice about the house; all except Maud, who was rather
shy and reserved still. We had ceased the endeavour to reconcile this
our Guy--this tall, grave man of nearly thirty, looking thirty-five and
more--with Guy, the boy that left us, the boy that in all our lives we
never should find again. Nevertheless, we took him, just as he was, to
our hearts, rejoicing in him one and all with inexpressible joy.

He was much altered, certainly. It was natural, nay, right, that he
should be. He had suffered much; a great deal more than he ever told
us--at least, not till long after; had gone through poverty, labour,
sickness, shipwreck. He had written home by the
"Stars-and-Stripes"--sailed a fortnight later by another vessel--been
cast away--picked up by an outward-bound ship--and finally landed in
England, he and his partner, as penniless as they left it.

"Was your partner an Englishman, then?" said Maud, who sat at the foot
of the sofa, listening. "You have not to