One morning Sir Jones invited her to accompany him in a visit to a castle, famous for its historic associations; and supposing her brother was to be of the party she gladly consented. When it was too late to recede, she found Mr. Radcliffe had engaged only two horses; and that her brother was otherwise occupied. She could do nothing but resign herself to the arrangement in the best manner she was able. He began to talk of Paul, telling her how the bright face of the little fellow had haunted him ever since she had shown him the picture. How it happened she never could recollect, but somehow his kindness and sympathy led her on, until she told him of the brief life of her little Rose, every word breathing such a sweet trust in the wisdom of her heavenly Father in taking the babe to its home in the skies, that he had no words to express his admiration. Through all their intercourse he had noticed that she never had mentioned the name of her husband; now without a suspicion that he could be alive, he said, tenderly: "Paul must have been a great comfort to you when his sister was taken away." He was surprised and deeply pained by the burst of tears which accompanied her answer. "Precious little Rose was my first born! I was just past my seventeenth birthday when that dream of happiness was over. Poor Paul has never seen his father." "Let me be his father," he began; and once released from the violent restraint in which he had kept back expressions of his affection, he poured out his heart before her. In vain she tried to check him, urging: "It is impossible." He had now lost self-command; and the tide of love would not be longer dammed up. [Illustration: "Paul must have been a great comfort to you."] "Believe me, Mr. Radcliffe," she urged, still weeping. "I would have spared you this refusal. I will not deny that before we left Rome, I began to suspect the nature of your sentiments; and assumed a coldness foreign to my feelings in order that you might understand that, however much I admired you as a Christian gentleman, nothing farther could take place." "But why? If there are obstacles, I can overcome them. I am at the age when men desire a home and family; but having found the only one I ever desired to marry, I am willing to wait if you think it too soon after your husband's death." She shuddered. "You are mistaken, Sir Jones," she faltered, every particle of color vanishing from her face and lips. "In justice to you I ought to confess that had circumstances been different I might have yielded to your wishes; but the man who once called me wife still lives, though just sinking into the grave. Nearly four years ago the law sundered the tie; and when I tell you that I have just come from his death-bed, the death-bed of an humble penitent, clinging for pardon to the cross of his Saviour, you will not wonder that I have no desire to speak of past trials."