"Please do not say that. I should love to stay, but I must not; it is late now, and Marcus will be waiting for me," and Olivia rose as she spoke. "And now before I go may I ring for the lamps to be lighted? there is something uncanny in this darkness, and the fire is getting hollow too." "Well, well, do as you like," was the abrupt answer. "I am going to have my dinner here tonight, it is warmer," and so Olivia had her way. As she bade him good-night, he said, a little wistfully, "You can come to-morrow afternoon if you like. I have those views of Venice and Florence to show you. I had an old Florentine palace for six months, the year before my little Olive died; that was our last happy year." "Of course I will come," she replied, smiling at him. But as she left the room she sighed; had she really exorcised those evil spirits? or would they return again, with tenfold force? "remorse;" that was the word he used, this was the canker-worm that was robbing him of peace. "It is not easy for me to forgive even if the offender is my own flesh and blood." How sad it was to hear him say that. "I think, after all, I did him some little good," she thought, as she groped her way cautiously through the dark shrubbery. "That hard, rigid look had quite disappeared before I left. I have a feeling somehow that one day he will open his heart to me and tell me his trouble. Every now and then he drops a word or two; perhaps this evening, if I had not been so hurried, he would have spoken out." Olivia's warm heart was full of pity for the lonely man sitting beside his desolate hearth, but she was young, and as the heavy gate closed after her, and she hurried across the road, a sudden vision of her own bright little parlour with Marcus waiting for her rose blissfully before her. Marcus would have returned long ago and would be wondering at her delay. She knew what he was doing--cutting the pages of _Esmond_ for their evening reading. How charmed he had been with her gift, although he had pretended to be angry at her extravagance. A few particles of snow powdered her as she rang the bell. Marcus answered it himself. "Livy, my dear child," he said, quickly, "what an age you have been! Come into the kitchen a moment, I want to speak to you, and Martha is upstairs. No, not there," catching hold of her arm as she absently turned the handle of the parlour door. "I said the kitchen." "Oh, Marcus, what is it?" in an alarmed voice, as she suddenly perceived his grave, preoccupied look, "there is something wrong--with baby," but his smile reassured her. "Nothing is wrong, I am only a little perplexed. Dot's all right, and the house is not on fire, and Martha is enjoying her usual health, but we have got a Christmas guest, that's all." "Marcus, what can you mean, when we know no one here? Is it one of your old hospital friends? And why may I not go in and see him?"