"Mr. Yeldham! Yes; I understand that if I tell her you have been here, she will be free to choose whether you shall come again; and unless she or I tell you, you can never know whether she comes again. So it will be her own affair, and I cannot be betrayed into injuring her. Yes,"--she looked up suddenly at him,--"I will tell her if she comes here ever again." "Thank God!" exclaimed Yeldham in a tone of infinite relief; "then all will be right, and it is only waiting a little longer; for I am sure she will come back at some time. God bless you for that promise! You do not know all the good you may do, all the ill you may prevent, by keeping it." "I always keep my promises," said Louise coldly, rather offended by his thanks. "Yes, yes, I know that; but O, if I could but make you understand! _She_ will make you understand, some day, all I could never explain. A word more, and I leave you. When you tell her that I was here, and the story I have told you of my business and my hopes--_she_ will believe it, though it is quite natural and right that _you_ should hesitate to do so--tell her this, that I entreated you to write to me and let me know that she had returned to Paris. You will do this too, will you not? You see it is only a part of what you have already promised: it is not a new thing. I cannot know that she has returned, unless she permits you to tell me, and so only can harm her. You see I take your own view, with her own consent." "I see that," said Louise; "it follows from the first. Yes, if she gives me leave, I will write to you." He contented himself with a more moderate expression of gratitude than was natural to him under the circumstances; and then, having written his address in full, and very distinctly, on the card Louise had consented to keep, he took his leave. He had been defeated in the greater purpose, but he had achieved a less one, whose gain would have seemed to the friends priceless good fortune a little while ago, but which was robbed of its fail proportions by the larger hope unfulfilled. Yeldham communicated to Robert the result of his expedition by letter the same evening, and the following day he returned to London. "I am thankful, Charley, for the light I have been granted. It is dawn after dark, and now I will wait and hope for the day," said Robert; and Yeldham rejoiced to see his fortitude. So October passed, and November; and December came, and it was only twilight still. CHAPTER IX. SUCCESS.