in the full stroke of day from the window she started and heathen remembered that it was their first meeting under the rays she was so overcome that she turned and left the room as if she had forgotten something when she re entered she was visibly pale she recovered herself and she had been sitting up the night before the last she said and was not quite so well as usual there may have been some truth in this but could not get over that first scared look of hers it was enough to give to his night views of a possible tragedy lurking in this wedding project he determined a sketch of a temperament that at any cost to his heart there should be no about him from this moment miss he said as they sat down since it is well you should know all the truth before we go any further that there may be no awkward discoveries afterwards i am going to tell you something about myself � if you are not too distressed to hear it no � let me hear it i was once the lover of your mother and wanted to marry her only she wouldn t or rather couldn t marry me o how strange said the girl looking from him to the breakfast things and from the breakfast things to him mother has never told me that yet of course you might have been i mean you are old enough he took the remark as a satire she had not intended o yes � quite old enough he said grimly almost too old too old for mother how s that because i belonged to your grandmother no that be i was her lover likewise i should have married her if i had gone straight on instead of round the comer s the well beloved but you couldn t have been mr you are not old enough why how old are you � you have never told mc i am very old my mother s and my grandmother s said she looking at him no longer as at a possible husband but as a strange in human form saw it but meaning to give up the game he did not care to spare himself your mother s and your grandmother s young man he repeated and were you my great grandmother s too she asked with an expectant interest in his case as a drama that overcame her personal considerations for a moment no � not your great grandmother s your imagination beats even my but i am very old as you see i did not know it said she in an appalled murmur you do not look so and i thought that what you looked you were and you � you are very young he continued a stillness followed during which she sat in a troubled regarding him now and then with something in her open eyes and large pupils a sketch of a temperament that might have been sympathy or ate scarce any breakfast and rising abruptly from the table said he would take a walk on the as the morning was fine he did so proceeding along the north east heights for nearly a mile he had given up but not formally his intention had been to go back to the house in half an hour and pay a morning visit to the invalid but by not returning the plans of the previous evening might be allowed to lapse silently as that had come to nothing in the face of s want of love for him accordingly went straight along and in the course of an hour was at his lodgings nothing occurred till the evening to inform him how his absence had been taken then a note arrived from mrs it was written in pencil evidently as she lay i am alarmed she said at your going so suddenly seems to think she has offended you she did not mean to do that i am sure it makes me dreadfully anxious will you send a line surely you will not desert us now � my heart is so set on my child s welfare a s the well beloved desert you i won t said it is too much like the original case but i must let her desert me on his return with no other object than that of wishing mrs good bye he found her painfully agitated she clasped his hand and it tears o don t be offended with her she cried she s young we are one people � don t marry a it will break my heart if you her now the girl came my manner was hasty and thoughtless this morning she said in a tow voice please pardon me i wish to abide by my promise her mother still tearful again joined their hands and the engagement stood as before went back to but dimly seeing how curiously through his being a rich ideas of and were retaining him in the course arranged by her mother and urged by his own desire in the face of his understanding a sketch of a temperament on the verge of possession iii v in anticipation of his marriage had taken a new red house of the approved pattern with a new at the back as large as a bam hither in with the elder � whose health had mended somewhat � he invited mother and daughter to spend a week or two with him thinking thereby to exercise on the latter s imagination an influence which was not practicable while he was a guest at their house and by interesting his in the fitting and furnishing of this residence to create in her an ambition to be its it was a pleasant time to be in town there was nobody to interrupt them in their proceedings and it being out of the season the 