than once under my window, and last night I
was so sure of it, that I got up and peeped from
behind the curtain, and I saw him! Poor man,
I hope he's not going mad; I should be very
sorry, though he is ugly, and queer, and wears
such absurd shirt-collars." Mrs. Brereton
involuntarily thought of Olivia's pitying anxiety
for Malvolio, under a similar fear.

"He is ill, perhaps, or has some family
trouble," she said. And then she resolved that,
ere the day should be over, some step must be
decided on to avert the danger.

Should she, without appearing to suspect the
truth, gently question him, as though she
believed what she had said to Lady Agnes,
mentioning the latter's discovery of his nocturnal
wanderings? This might, at least, put him on
his guard for the present, till she should decide
on what it might further be necessary to do?
Yes, that would be the best plan. So she
watched till an opportunity occurred of finding
him alone in the library, a room which, in the
absence of Lord Leytonstone, Andrew and
herself only frequented.

Entering, she found him seated by a table at
the end of the room. Books were spread before
him, but he read none of them; on an open folio
his arms were laid, and his head rested on them.
At the sound of her step he raised it, not starting
from his position, but lifting up his face
slowly, as one too stupified and weary with grief
to heed interruption. He said no word, and his
face was so wan and haggard that Lady Agnes's
words—"I hope he is not going mad, poor man"
—rushed across her recollection. She
approached him steadily, though her heart beat,
and commanding her voice, she began:

"Mr. Graham, you must pardon me, but I fear
—I think that I ought to speak to you as an
old woman to a young man whom she cannot
but believe is in some suffering, physical or
mental, that requires sympathy, and it may be
advice."

Then she went on by degrees to speak of what
her pupil had told her. He sat still, his elbows
resting on his book, his head in his hands, his
fingers through his dishevelled hair, till she came
to this point; then he looked up.

"She saw me? I did not mean that. But the
truth—and you know it—is, that I am going mad
for the love of her."

Then his face went down upon his hands again,
and he groaned aloud.

Mrs. Brereton—good, sensible, proper Mrs.
Brereton—stood aghast. For this she certainly
was not prepared, and it took her so aback that
she paused, not knowing how to proceed further.
But she had time to recover, for Andrew seemed
to have forgotten her presence in the depths of
his agony.

"But then," she began, timidly, "what do
you propose to do? Things cannot go on so."

"They cannot! God knows they cannot! I
suppose," looking up with a ghastly smile, "you
think the maddest part of it was my falling in
love with her at all! If you knew what my
youth has been—starved of all youth's brightness!
I know it sounds like a hero of melodrama
to talk of suicide, but, on my soul, I do not see
how I can face life, while death seems so easy!
What can I do? What can anyone do for
me?"

"Time—absence," faltered Mrs. Brereton.

"Time—ay, but in the mean while. Absence
—but during the absence. Now, is the question.
When a man is writhing frantic with a present
agony, will it relieve him to suggest that years
hence he may have recovered from the wound?
But at least, if I die in the effort, I must leave
this. Nothing must happen to me here to shock,
or startle, or offend her. You will make my
excuses to Lord Leytonstone. You may tell
him the truth or not, just as you think fit. I
shall probably never see him again; and he is a
good man—he will feel that I have endeavoured
to do my duty."

Five years passed away, and Lady Agnes was
married in her own degree, and Andrew Graham
was quietly settled down again at Leytonstone
Hall as librarian, his somewhile pupil, Lord
Leithbridge, having gone to Oxford. Mrs.
Brereton had told Lord Leytonstone the truth,
and he had understood it all, and when he could
find Andrew out, at the end of four years' wild
wanderings up and down the earth, he had
begged him, Lady Agnes being lately married,
to return to his old duties in his old retreat.
And weary and hopeless of flying from himself,
and feeling some of the old love of his neglected
studies return upon him, and touched by Lord
Leytonstone's kindness and fidelity, he had
consented.

Time had wrought no great change in him;
it seldom does in men of his aspect and manner;
it had rather intensified than altered his
peculiarities.

His cheeks were more hollow, and his hair
thinner, and his shirt-collars perhaps higher,
and his manner, if possible, more nervously
awkward and absent than of old. But he had
by degrees fallen back into his old habit of
taking Dr. Britton's house in the course of his
solitary rambles, and, by degrees also, his terror
of Nelly had worn away.

Somehow or other she had got an inkling of
the cause of his abrupt departure, and wild as
had seemed to her his folly in allowing even his
thoughts to rise to Lady Agnes, it was
nevertheless undoubtedly true that his involuntary
presumption had risen him considerably in her
estimation. Besides, was there ever a true
woman who did not view with interest a man
who had loved not wisely but too well? who
did not entertain a "desire to be good to
him," apart from all interested motive in the
matter?

So Nelly treated him gently, and he ceased
to be afraid of her, and came by slow gradations
to feel comforted by her presence, and learned
to talk to her shyly.

It was a lovely day in the declining summer,
and the late afternoon sun was lying on the
doctor's house and garden. Nelly had finished
mixing the salad, and had strolled out bare-
headed into what was called the orchard, a bit