His sight was weak yet, and though he had guessed to whom Mattie alluded, he could but dimly distinguish a female figure advancing towards him, as from the mists of that past sphere of which he had spoken. It came towards him slowly, even falteringly at last; and he remained motionless, awaiting the end of all that might ensue on that strange day. It was the past coming back to him, to make or mar him. He shivered as he thought of all the folly he had committed, if, after all, Mattie and Maurice were right, and even his own heart had misled him. He was a man whose judgment had been sound through life--why should he have erred so greatly in this instance? "Mattie--Mattie!" gasped Harriet, on entering, "what does this mean?" "That Sidney has been waiting for you," said Mattie, quickly, "to thank you for all past interest in him. Shake hands, you two, and let me--let me go away!" "No, no, don't leave me, Mattie! You must remain. I have been ill. I--I am very weak." "If you wish it, for a little while. You two are not enemies now--let me see you shake hands, then?" The old sweethearts shook hands together at Mattie's wish, and then stood shyly looking at each other, each too discomfited, even troubled, to say a word. Mattie had one more part to play before she could escape them. CHAPTER IX. MATTIE, MEDIATRIX. Harriet Wesden was strangely afraid of the old lover--what he would say to her in the first moments of meeting, whether he would speak of the past in which she had been misjudged, of the present hour which had brought them face to face, or of the future for them both, and what it would be like from that day. She was afraid to speak, afraid to trust herself with him, and she clung closer to the skirt of the old friend, a child still in moments of emergency, as she had ever been. Sidney Hinchford stood perplexed, amazed--what could he say in the presence of the woman to whom he had been talking about marriage?--what dared he say were she even to leave them to fight out their explanations their own way? Mattie read the fear of one, and exaggerated in her imagination the reserve of the other; even then all might be marred, and all her efforts end in nothing, if she were not quick to act. "I asked Sidney, as you entered, Harriet, if it were not something more than chance that brought you two together to-day--that brought him hither, in particular," she said; "I think it is--I trust that from to-day a brighter life opens for you both. Why should it not?--you who have kept so long asunder from each other, only require an honest mediator to pave the way for a fair explanation. Both of you will have faith in Mattie!" Neither answered, but Mattie did not take silence for dissent.