"And I don't know whether I ought to tell him who I really am, or not," the girl reflected, looking deep into the heart of the glowing coals. "He was so kind to-day, but I don't believe he would go on feeling kind to a girl who could answer an advertisement like that--even though he would still be kind, because he is a gentleman. I wonder if I ought to tell him? And yet--it would be horrible--horrible to have to say it. I should be so ashamed---so dreadfully ashamed. Only--I think, perhaps--he would understand how poor I was, how desperate I felt, that day when I wrote to him. He has such an understanding face, and his eyes look as if they had seen so much sorrow, so that he would know what other people's sorrows mean. I wish--I--could be a rest-bringer to him." From that thought, she drifted away to the lonely house in the valley, to the beautiful woman whose troubled face and deep, anguished eyes haunted the girl like an obsession, and to the sick man, whose death, so Dr. Fergusson had said, was only perhaps a matter of a few short weeks. What strange tragedy was hidden by the four walls of that lonely house? What did it all mean--the secrecy, the isolation, and above all the trouble that had been written so plainly on that beautiful woman's face? "I don't suppose I shall ever see her again," was Christina's final and regretful thought, as she rose to go to bed. "I wish people didn't have to be like 'ships that pass in the night'--only passing--not staying together for a little while." CHAPTER XIII. "YOU HAVE BEEN A FRIEND TO ME TO-DAY."