“Yes, unhesitatingly; her word was plighted to another. And though she would not, for the man to whom she had betrothed herself, have left her father alone in poverty and exile, she would never have married any one else.” “You believe, then, that she loved your rival with a heart that could not change?” Tracey did not immediately reply. At last he said, “I believe this—that when scarcely out of girlhood, she considered herself engaged to be one man’s wife, or for ever single. And if, in the course of time, and in length of absence, she could have detected in her heart the growth of a single thought unfaithful to her troth, she would have plucked it forth and cast it from her as firmly as if already a wedded wife, with her husband’s honour in her charge. She was one of those women with whom man’s trust is for ever safe, and to whom a love at variance with plighted troth is an impossibility. So, she lives in my thoughts still, as I saw her last, five-and-twenty years ago, unalterable in her youth and beauty. And I have been as true to her hallowed remembrance as she was true to her maiden vows. May I never see her again on earth! Her or her likeness I may find amidst the stars.” “No,” he added, in a lighter and cheerier tone—“No; I do not think that my actual destinies, my ways of life here below, have been affected by her loss. Had I won her, I can scarcely conceive that I should have become more tempted to ambition or less enamoured of home. Still, whatever leaves so deep a furrow in a man’s heart cannot be meant in vain. Where the ploughshare cuts, there the seed is sown, and there later the corn will spring. In a word, I believe that everything of moment which befalls us in this life—which occasions us some great sorrow—for which, in this life, we see not the uses—has, nevertheless, its definite object, and that that object will be visible on the other side of the grave. It may seem but a barren grief in the history of a life—it may prove a fruitful joy in the history of a soul. For if nothing in this world is accident, surely all that which affects the only creature upon earth to whom immortality is announced, must have a distinct and definite purpose, often not developed till immortality begins.” Here we had entered on the wide spaces of the park. The deer and the kine were asleep on the silvered grass, or under the shade of the quiet trees. Now, as we cleared a beech-grove, we saw the lights gleaming from the windows of the house, and the moon, at her full, resting still over the peaceful housetop! Truly had Percival said, “That there are trains of thought set in motion by the stars which are dormant in the glare of the sun”—truly had he said, too, “That without such thoughts man’s thinking is incomplete.” We gained the house, and, entering the library, it was pleasant to see how instinctively all rose to gather round the master. They had missed Percival’s bright presence the whole day.