am ignorant of the circumstances which must have compelled her to agree to a marriage, into which she could not enter with her heart. Whatever they may have been, she, I am sure, is to be excused. Her youth and unselfishness of disposition would render her easy to persuade to such a sacrifice. I have said more than I intended. Selfishly too I have omitted to express my hopes that you found Colonel Archer in a fair way to complete recovery. I do not send any message to him, as I must beg you, on every account, to consider this letter and all it contains as strictly private. I shall be very grateful to you if you will answer this as soon as possible. Believe me, “Yours faithfully, “RALPH M. SEVERN. “P.S. I am forgetting to mention that if the letter I sent to Cheltenham to Miss Freer, has, with yours, been forwarded to India, it is not either way of much consequence. Fearing it might not reach her directly, I purposely made it short and formal. Merely expressing my regret at not having seen her again, and asking for her address that I might send her some books, &c. This (and everything else) is fully explained in the enclosed.” “The enclosed” was three times the length of the foregoing. It contained, as Ralph said, a full explanation of all that had occurred since the last evening at Altes, when they parted, as they thought, for the fortnight merely of Ralph’s visit to England. Now began again for Ralph a period of weary waiting, till the answer, or answers, to his letters might be expected. It was a long time to wait—four months or thereabouts! He grew sick of the summer, the constant sunshine and brightness, and longed for the time when he should see the leaves beginning to turn, when among the trees he should perceive the first whisper of autumn. “For by then,” he thought, “this suspense at least will be over. And at the worst I shall be free to begin to live down my disappointment.” So it came to pass that at the very same time both Marion and he were waiting with anxious hearts for news from the far-off East. Whereas, had they only known it, but a few days’ journey and a few words of explanation, would have sufficed again, and for life, to unite them. What, for two or three weeks, Ralph thought was to be his only answer, came to him, as to Marion, in the advertisement sheet of the “Times;” where one morning early in October, he saw the announcement of poor Cissy’s death. It shocked him greatly. For a week or two he knew not what to think or do. Then one morning, as he was all but losing hope of any further or more satisfactory reply, he received an Indian letter. A bulky letter with a deep black border round the envelope, and addressed in an unfamiliar hand. He turned it about, as people always do when particularly anxious to learn the contents of a letter, stared at the address, the stamps, and the black seal, as if they could reveal the secret of the inside!