"You will be surprised to hear from me after all these years; but I heard from Cyril lately; he gave me your address, and I feel that I must write to you. He told me of your marriage, and that you have a daughter. I knew nothing about you before, except what I gathered from your articles in the _Fortnightly_. Do you never come to London? If you do, come and see me; we will avoid all reference to painful by-gones and meet as old friends. I was near you last summer. I drove over with my girl and Tom Carringford (you remember his father) to look at a house we thought of taking. If I had known-- "Let me hear from you. I want to be told that I am forgiven for all the trouble I caused you, and that you will one day come and shake my hand. Perhaps you will bring your child to see me. "Yours always, "HILDA LAKEMAN." Gerald Vincent sat and thought of the years ago and of a ball--it seemed a strange thing for him to remember a ball--and a long, maddening waltz; he could hear the crash of the "Soldaten Lieder" now, the long-drawn-out end, and the hurrying to the cool air. The girl on his arm wore a black dress--she was in mourning for her sister, he remembered--and some lilies were at her waist. The scent of them came back to him through all the years. He saw the people passing in the dim light; they had drawn back--he and she--so as not to be seen; he heard the sound of laughter, the buzz of voices, the uneasy beginning of the next dance. He remembered her perfect self-possession, and his own awkwardness, that had made him let the opportunity to speak slip by; but it had seemed to him that words were unnecessary. Looking back, he felt that she had been interested in the hour rather than sharing it, and he wondered, with a little sorry amusement at the remembrance of her manner, how much or how little she had really felt. He thought of the summer that followed, of days on the river in late July, when the London season was in its last rushing days, the sound of oars, the trailing of the willows at the water's edge, the visits to house-boats, the merry little luncheon-party on the point at Cookham. Mrs. Berwick had been the discreetest of chaperons, and when they had drunk their coffee--vile coffee it had been--he and Hilda had wandered off while the others stayed drowsily behind. How strange it was to think of it all! He could feel still her arms clinging round his neck, and hear her low, passionate whisper--"Yes, yes, I love you--I love you--I love you!" Words had never come easily to him, and he had been ashamed of his dumbness when she could find them. Remembering them now, her tones rang false. He thought of his ordination, and the happy winter when gradually he had put aside the foolish dissipations, and work and love made up his life; of the curacy he held for a little while. Hilda had been full of some scheme; he understood it dimly when he went to the bishop's palace