* * * * * How had it come about? Grey never could have said. But now it was all told—the story of his chequered life. She had been silent at the first—not exactly resentful of his intrusion, not unwilling to let him have speech of her again, but quiet, with a maidenly reserve and dignity which had acted upon him like a charm. It brought back to him the memory of his mother, and her noble dignity. The look in her eyes recalled those things that he had learned at her knee, and those aspirations after true greatness of life which she had cherished and fostered. Suddenly his present life looked to him utterly sordid, mean, and unworthy; and in a burst of confidence, for which he could have given no reason, he told her all his tale, encouraged by the soft and earnest glances of her beautiful eyes, although she scarcely spoke a word from beginning to end. And now she looked at him with a great compassion in her face. "Oh, it is sad, it is sad!" she said in her earnest musical tones. "I know a little how sad it is. I see it too. But you are a man. You are strong, you are your own master. Why do you let yourself be made the sport and plaything of fate? Oh, do not do it! Rise to your calling as a man, as a gentleman, as a Christian! You can—I know you can! I read it in your face! What is Lord Sandford to you? The acquaintance of a few weeks. What are his comrades to you? You know that in your heart you despise them. Then will you make yourself as one of them? Will you sink to their level? Oh no, no, no! Break the fetters; they cannot be fast riveted yet. Break them, and stand a free man, and then see what the world has to offer you." She was gazing at him now, not shyly, not as a maiden archly coquetting with a handsome young swain, but as a woman yearning to reclaim one whose footsteps had well-nigh slipped in the mire, and whose whole soul was stirred by the effort. Grey listened like a man who dreams; and yet his eyes were on fire, and his heart was kindled to a great flame—shame at his own weakness, yearnings after vanished memories and half-forgotten aspirations struggling together with some new and utterly unknown emotion which seemed to come surging over him like a flood, leaving him speechless, motionless. She had risen, and now held out her hand. "You will triumph yet. I am assured of it. And I shall pray God to give you His strength and grace. Farewell, sir; we may meet again sometimes. I shall hear of you. I shall listen to hear naught but good. Your mother’s voice shall plead through mine. Give up evil companions; give up idle dissipation, and all that it brings in its train. Lead the higher life of the Courteous Knight, the Spotless Knight, the Knight of the Holy Grail. Did we not speak of them all when first we met, and methought you looked such a one yourself? Be true to that better self; and so I say farewell again. May God be with you!"