He passed through the shop unchallenged, visitors for the lodgers being accustomed to pass in and out in a free and easy manner. He went quietly upstairs. The sitting-room door stood ajar. He pushed it open, and went in. CHAPTER XIII. 'MY LOVE, MY LOVE, AND NO LOVE FOR ME.' Justina was leaning before an old easy chair, her face buried in the faded chintz cushion, sobbing vehemently—curiously changed from the silent, impassible being Maurice had taken leave of ten minutes earlier. The sight of her sorrow touched him. Whatever it meant, this was real grief at any rate. 'Forgive me for this intrusion, Miss Elgood,' he said, gently, remaining near the door lest he should startle her by his abrupt approach. 'I am very anxious to talk to you alone, and ventured to return.' She started up, hastily wiping away her tears. 'I am sorry to see you in such deep grief,' he said. 'You must have a tender heart to feel my poor friend's sad fate so acutely.' The pallid face crimsoned, as if this had been a reproof. 'I have no right to be so sorry, I dare say,' faltered Justina, 'but he was very kind to me—kinder than any one ever was before,—and it is hard that he should be taken away so cruelly, just when life seemed to be all new and different because of his goodness.' 'Poor child. You must have a grateful nature.' 'I am grateful to _him_.' 'I can understand that just at first you may feel his death as if it were a personal loss, but that cannot last long. You had known him so short a time. Granted that he admired you, and paid you pretty compliments and attentions which may be new to one so young. If he had lived to bid you good-bye to-morrow, and pass on his way, you would hardly have remembered him a week.' 'I should have remembered him all my life,' said Justina, firmly. 'He had made a deep impression upon your mind or your fancy, then, in those two days.' 'He loved me,' the girl answered, with a little burst of passion, 'and I gave him back love for love with all my heart, with all my strength, as they tell us we ought to love God. Why do you come here to torment me about him? You cannot bring him back to life. God will not. I would spend all my life upon my knees if he could be raised up again, like Lazarus! I meant never to have spoken of this. I have kept it even from my father. He told me that he loved me, and that I was to be his wife, and that all our lives to come were to be spent together. Think what it is to have been so happy and to have lost all.'