She _had_ brought him sorrow, and yet he would not for the world have failed of knowing how sweet it was to love her even if she could not be his. If he could have kept her and taken her with him to his home among the hills, he felt that he would have parted willingly with his fortune and beautiful Millbank. But that could not be. She belonged to Frank; everything was Frank’s, and for an instant the whole extent of his calamity swept over him so painfully that he succumbed to it, and laying his face upon the table sobbed just as piteously as he had done in the first moment of surprise and pain when he heard that both fortune and name were gone. Magdalen could not understand all the causes of his distress. She did not dream that every sob and every tear wrung from the strong man was given more to her than to the fortune lost, and she tried to comfort him as best she could, thinking once to tell him how willingly she would toil and slave to make his new home attractive, deeming no self-denial too great if by its means he could be made happier and more comfortable. But she did not dare do this until she knew whether she was wanted in that home among the Schodick hills where he said he was going. Oh, how she wished he would give some hint that he expected her to go with him; but he did not, and he kept his face hidden so long that she came at last to his side, and laid her hand on his shoulder and bent over him with words of sympathy. Then, as he did not look up, she knelt beside him, and her hand found its way to his, and she called him Roger again, and begged him not to feel so badly. “You will drive me mad with remorse,” she said, “for I know I have done it all. Don’t, Roger, it breaks my heart to see you so distressed. What can I do to prove how sorry I am? Tell me and I will do it, even to the taking of my life.” It did not seem possible that this girl pleading thus with him could be another’s betrothed, and for a moment Roger lost all self-control, and forgetting Frank and his rights snatched her to his arms and pressing her to his bosom rained kiss after kiss upon her forehead and lips, saying to her, “My darling, my darling, you have been a blessing and a comfort to me all your life, but there’s nothing you can do for me now. Once I hoped—oh, Magda, my little girl, that time is far in the past; I hope for nothing now. I am not angry with you. I could not be so if I would. I bless you for all you have been to me. I hope you will be happy here at Millbank when I am gone; and now go, my darling. You are shivering with cold and the room is very damp. God bless you, Magda.” He led her out into the hall, then closed the door upon her, and went back again to his solitude and his sorrow, while Magdalen, bewildered and frightened and wearied out, found her way as best she could to her own room, where a few moments later Celine found her fainting upon the floor.