The earnest tender eyes were fixed upon him, and they were reading his thoughts, whilst she appeared to be waiting for him to complete the interrupted sentence. She saw the colour slowly rising on his brow, and knew that he was feeling ashamed of the doubt implied in his thought. ‘I want to tell you something,’ she said in her quiet brave way, ‘and I hope—no, I _believe_ that it will take one disagreeable fancy out of your head. I know that you did not mean what you said to me on that dreadful evening.’ ‘What else could a ruined man say?’ (This huskily and turning his face aside.) ‘He could say that he trusted his friends. Even Uncle Dick is angry with you for imagining that your misfortune could make any difference in his feelings towards you. And for me, you _ought_ to say ... but there, I am not going to speak about what you ought to say to me; I am only going to tell you what I shall do.’ He looked quickly at her, and the eager inquiry on his pale face rendered the words ‘What is that?’ superfluous. ‘I shall wait until you come for me; and when you come, I shall be ready to go with you where you will, whether you are poor or rich. No matter what anybody says—no matter what _you_ say, I shall wait.’ ‘O Madge!’ He could say nothing more; the man’s soul was in that whisper. Their hands were clasped: they were looking into each other’s eyes: the world seemed to sink away from them; and the woman’s devotion changed the winter into summer, changed the man’s ruin into success. He drew her arm within his; and they walked past the blackened walls of the Manor, and along the paths where they had spent so many pleasant hours during his recovery from the accident with the horse, to the place where he had thrown off the doctor’s control and got out of the wheel-chair. ‘I am not so sorry now for what has happened,’ were his first words. ‘It is worth losing everything to gain so much.’ ‘But you have not lost everything, Philip.’ ‘No; I should say that I have won everything. I am glad to have saved Wrentham from penal servitude, for his frauds have enabled me to realise the greatest of all blessings—the knowledge that come what may you can make me happy.’ ‘And I am happy too,’ she said softly, their arms tightening as they walked on again in silence. By-and-by he lifted his head, and seemed to shake the frost from his hair. ‘The doctor said I ought to have rest. I have got it from you, Madge. I can look straight again at the whole botheration—thank you, my darling.’ (A gentle pressure on his arm was the answer, and he went on.) ‘The arrangement offered by Beecham is a very good and kind one, which will enable me in course of time to clear myself whilst carrying out my scheme; we can take a small house; Mr Shield will live with us, and we must try to make him comfortable. Then we need not wait for the end of next harvest, unless you still insist’—— ‘No, Philip; when you bid me come to you, I am ready.’ CIGARS.