"Yes, from Sage. She wants to see you." "I could not bear it," cried Luke. "Heavens, man! have I not been reproached enough?" "It is not to reproach you, I think, Luke Ross," said Portlock, softly. "She bade me say to thee, `Come to me, if you have any sympathy for my piteous case.'" PART THREE, CHAPTER EIGHT. A FORLORN HOPE. "Come to me if you have any sympathy for my piteous case!" Sympathy! In his bitter state of self-reproach, he would have done anything to serve her. He felt that he could forgive Cyril Mallow, aid him in any way, even to compromising himself by helping him to escape. But he shrank from meeting Sage: he felt that he could not meet her reproachful eyes. "You will come and see her?" said the Churchwarden. "Ah, my lad, if we could have looked into the future!" His voice shook a little as he spoke, but he seemed to nerve himself, and said again--"You will come and see her?" "If it will be any good. Yes," said Luke, slowly; and they proceeded together to the hotel, where Sage was staying with her uncle, in one of the streets leading out of the Strand. The old Rector was so broken of spirit that he allowed Portlock to lead him like a child, and, satisfied with the assurance that to-morrow he should return home, he sat down in the room set apart, with old Michael Ross, while, in obedience to a sign from Portlock, Luke followed him to a room a few doors away. The place was almost in shadow, for the gas had not been lit, and as Luke entered, with his heart beating fast, a dark figure rose from an easy-chair by the fire, and tottered towards the old farmer, evidently not seeing Luke, who stayed back just within the door. "He would not come," she cried. "It was cruel of him. I thought he had a nobler heart, and in all these years would have forgiven me at last." "Mr Ross is here, Sage," said Portlock, rather sternly. "Shall I leave you to speak to him alone?" "No, no," she cried in a hoarse whisper, instead of her former high-pitched querulous tone. "I cannot--I dare not speak to him alone." "If forgiveness is needed for the past, Mrs Mallow," said Luke, in a grave, calm voice, for he had now mastered his emotion, "you have mine freely given, and with it my true sympathy for your position." She burst into a passionate fit of weeping, which lasted some minutes, during which she stood hiding her face on her uncle's breast; then, recovering herself, she hastily wiped away her tears, and drawing herself up, stood holding out her hand for Luke to take. He hesitated for a moment, and then, stepping forward, took it and raised it to his lips, just touching it with grave respect, and then letting it fall. "I wished to say to you, Mr Ross, let the past be as it were dead, all save our boy and girlhood's days." "It shall be as you wish," he said, softly. "You do not bear malice against me?" "None whatever; but is not this better left, Mrs Mallow? Why should we refer so to the past?"