unremitting care? Cassandra looked back and saw herself retiring into a chilly reserve, meeting neglect with neglect, indifference with indifference, disdaining to invite a love which was not voluntarily bestowed. It had seemed, at the time, the only way of preserving her dignity, but as she watched her husband by his mother's bedside, there came a sudden realisation that if she had thought less of pride, and more of love, the barrenness of their joint lives might have been averted. If she had used her woman's wiles,--smiled, cajoled, even in those early days, wept a few,--just a few, pretty, becoming tears, to enforce her need, the barrier would never have grown so high: Cassandra had been accustomed to put all the blame on her husband's shoulders, and to congratulate herself on being immaculately free from blame; never till this moment had she realised that to a man of the Squire's temperament, her attitude of chill detachment, and smiling indifference, was of all things the most exasperating. If she had blazed in anger, even to the extent of facing an occasional battle royal, the corroding bitterness would have found a vent, and reconciliation opened the way to fresh tenderness. "It's my fault as much as his!" Cassandra acknowledged, and the admission softened her heart. The old Mater did not die. The critical days dragged slowly past, and she grimly held her own. In all human probability she would live on for months, for years, until the lightning fell for the third time. To Cassandra such a recovery seemed a piteous thing, but the Squire's rejoicings were whole-hearted, and the old Mater herself wore an air of triumph. Apparently life was dear to her still, and the prospect of lying in bed, with one half of her body already dead, held more attractions than the celestial choirs on which she pinned her faith. There was a grim irony in hearing the twisted lips murmur fragments of her favourite hymn--"Oh, Lamb of God, I come!" and Cassandra's sense of humour could not resist the reflection that the old lady was exceedingly loath to go! Grizel wrote that she had given Dane the necessary explanation, and after four days' incessant consideration, Cassandra wrote and despatched the following letter: "I was coming to you, as I promised; I had counted every moment of every day as it passed, longing for the time to arrive; in another minute I should have been on my way, and then,--what was it?--fate, chance, providence, God?--_Something_ intervened, and it became impossible for me to meet you, then, or later. I don't know how long we shall be here. My husband's mother is recovering, but she cannot bear him out of her sight. He is an angel of goodness to her, and in some wonderful way seems to be able to lend her some of his own strength. We may be here for months; it will certainly be many weeks; so I can't come, Dane, I can't have the one joy I longed for... the one more hour together, before we said good-bye!