VII.

HIS VISITOR.

"The fairy woman maketh moan,
'Well-a-day, and well-a-day,
Forsooth I brought thee one rose, one,
and thou didst cast my rose away.'
Hark! Oh hark, she mourneth yet,
'One good ship--the good ship sailed,
One bright star, at last it set,
one, one chance, forsooth it failed.'

"'Clear thy dusk hair from thy veiled eyes,
show thy face as thee beseems,
For yet is starlight in the skies,
weird woman piteous through my dreams,
'Nay,' she mourns, 'forsooth not now,
veiled I sit for evermore,
Rose is shed, and charmed prow
shall not touch the charmed shore.

"There thy sons that were to be,
thy small gamesome children play;
There all loves that men foresee
straight as wands enrich the way.
Dove-eyed, fair, with me they wonn
where enthroned I reign a queen,
In the lovely realms foregone,
in the lives that might have been."

That glad to-morrow for Valentine never came. At the time when he should
have reached Wigfield, a letter summoned his brother to Melcombe.

Emily and John Mortimer had delayed their return, for Valentine, whether
from excitement at the hope of setting off, or from the progress of his
disease, had been attacked, while sitting out of doors, with such sudden
prostration of strength that he was not got back again to the house
without the greatest difficulty. They opened a wide window of the "great
parlour," laid him on a couch, and then for some hours it seemed
doubtful whether he would rally.

He was very calm and quiet about it, did not at all give up hope, but
assented when his sister said, "May I write to St. George to come to
you?" and sent a message in the letter, asking his brother to bring his
wife and child.

He seemed to be much better when they arrived, and for two or three days
made good progress towards recovery; but the doctors would not hear of
his attempting to begin his journey, or even of his rising from the bed
which had been brought down for him into the wide, old-fashioned
parlour.

And so it came to pass that Brandon found himself alone about midnight
with Valentine, after a very comfortable day of little pain or
discomposure. All the old intimacy had returned now, and more than the
old familiar affection. Giles was full of hope, which was all the
stronger because Valentine did not himself manifest that unrea