"Remember!" he said in keen distress. "What do you mean, Margaret? Have you still the same presentiment? Is this your former talk with me over again?" "Yes," she replied, "and no. When I talked with you before, I was troubled, sad, and afraid. Now I am neither sad, troubled, nor afraid." "You are ill. There is something which you know and are hiding from us which makes you think and speak thus." "No, indeed." There was conviction in her tone, and he could but look at her and wait until she should speak again. She did not speak for a few moments, and then she resumed in a firm voice: "I want to say to you all that is in my mind--at least as far as it can be said. I am not ill in any serious way, and I am not hiding anything which ought to be made known; and yet I do believe that I am not to live much longer in this world, and I acknowledge with a full heart that the richest portion of happiness ever given to a woman has been, is mine. When this trouble, the only one I have had in my new life, came to me, it changed me, and changed everything to me for a time; but the first effect is quite past, and the wound my pride received is healed. I don't think about that now; but I do think of the wonderful compensation, if I may dare to use a word which sounds like bringing God to a reckoning for His dealings with one of His creatures, which has been made to me, and I feel that I have lived all my days. The old presentiment that I had of evil to come to me from Australia, and its fulfilment, and the suffering and struggle, all are alike gone now, quieted down, and the peace has come which I do not believe anything is ever to disturb more." "Margaret, Margaret!" he said, "I cannot bear this; you must not speak thus; if you persist in doing so, there _must_ be some reason for it. It is not like you to have such morbid fancies." "And it is not like you to misunderstand me," she interrupted gently. "Can you not see that I am telling you what is in my mind on what I believe will be my last day in my old home, because, if I am right, it will make you happy in the time to come to remember it?" "Happy!" he repeated with impatience. "Yes, happy! and if I am not right, and this is indeed but a morbid fancy, it will have done you no harm to hear it. You have listened to many a fancy of mine, dear old friend." Tears gathered in her eyes now, and two large drops fell from the dark eyelashes unheeded. "I have, I have," he said, "but to what fancies! How can you speak thus, Margaret? How can you think so calmly of leaving those who love you so much, those in whose love you confess you have found so much happiness? Your husband, your child, your father!"