"Mrs. Hepburne," he said, after a slight pause, "I can never forgive myself for persuading you to come with us to-day. If I had only known—" "Known what?" I asked, involuntarily. "That you would have had to bear the neglect—the humiliation you have borne to-day! Forgive me if I have spoken too plainly. I always lamented your marriage, knowing as I did that Ronald had given away his heart before he ever knew you. Now, perhaps, you can understand why those who loved you best so bitterly regretted the sacrifice you made in bestowing yourself on him." Oh, if I had not been so weak and spent, I might have answered him as a wife who had a true sense of her own dignity! But I was exhausted in body and confused in mind. "Who are those who loved me best?" I said, clasping and unclasping my hands. "It seems to me sometimes that the only person who ever loved me was my grandfather. And I wish, with all my heart, that I could follow him!" [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XIV. STRICKEN. THERE was a silence after I had spoken those incautious words. I heard my companion breathing quickly; but when he spoke again, it was in a quiet voice. "We all wish sometimes to follow those who are gone," he said, taking up the latter part of my sentence. "Their love seems the only real love; everything pure and true seems to have passed away with them." He had exactly expressed my thoughts. Of late I had felt as if my place were with the departed, and not in this world at all. I had succeeded so ill with the living, that I was only fit for the company of the dead. "But," he went on, in a deepening voice, and with eyes fixed on mine, "we only turn to the past because our hour is not yet come. Do you follow me? I believe that to everyone of us there comes once—perhaps twice—in a life the chance of a happy love. We are blessed indeed if we seize that chance, but most of us let it go by. It may return, and we may recognise in it our last possibility of happiness." It was not until later on that I took in his full meaning. I was too much excited just then to perceive the true significance of his words; but the earnestness of his look and tone impressed me strangely. "You are unhappy to-night," he continued. "You have seen with your own eyes that a pre-occupied heart will always be constant to its first tenant. Sooner or later the second love finds itself pushed out into the cold; and it is happiest and wisest when it turns to some warm shelter that stands open and ready." "A wife can never permit herself to be pushed out into the cold," I cried, with sudden passion. "She will assert her rights, and retain possession." "Right is a poor thing unsupported by love," he said, sadly. The train had now reached its destination, and our tête-à-tête was at an end. I sprang quickly out of the carriage, and strained my eyes to discern Ronald and Ida in the dim light.