It was all carried out as Mr. Desmond wished. In the latter part of the week he accompanied the party to the seashore, saw them installed in comfortable quarters, and after staying two days took leave again. During his short stay, he enjoyed himself according to his flirting tastes with the lively seaside belles. In her capacity of Ruby's nurse Golden was compelled to see him a great deal, but he treated her at all times with such subdued respect and delicate attention that the girl grew less afraid of him, and began to think that Celine was right when she said he would abandon his pursuit of her now that he had found out she was an honest girl. She did not know that Mr. Desmond's quiet respect and delicate courtesy was more dangerous than his former open advances had been. Still she was relieved when he was gone, and she was left alone with little Ruby and Mrs. Markham, who was very kind to the lonely girl though in a decidedly patronizing fashion. When Golden and Ruby had been at the seaside a month with Mrs. Markham, the glad tidings that Mr. Chesleigh was beginning to improve, were conveyed to little Ruby in a short but affectionate letter from her mother. "Your dear uncle has had a great fight for his life, but the doctor now says that he is likely to get well," Mrs. Desmond wrote. "If he continues to improve, we shall be able to start home with him in about two weeks, journeying slowly. We will join you then at the seaside, as the physician thinks that a month by the sea will quite restore Bertram's health." It was Golden's task to read this letter to the little six-year-old, whose education, owing to her extreme frailty of constitution, had not yet commenced. The child cried out noisily for joy at the welcome news, but Golden said not a word. Yet her thoughts were very busy. "I shall see him again very soon," she said to herself. "Will he recognize, in his sister's servant, the girl that loved him so dearly?" Then the thought came to her that he would not wish to see her again; she had no part nor lot in his life henceforth, by his own desire. Musing sadly by the great, moaning sea, while little Ruby gathered the rosy-tinted shells along the sands, she murmured to herself those sweet, pathetic lines of Owen Meredith: "Oh, being of beauty and bliss! Seen and known In the depths of my heart, and possessed there alone, My days know thee not, and my lips name thee never, Thy place in my poor life is vacant forever; We have met, we have parted, No name is recorded In my annals on earth." CHAPTER XXIV. In few more days Mrs. Markham received a letter from Mrs. Desmond. Her brother was so much better that she had quite recovered the tone of her spirits, and wrote, cheerfully: