“Good-by, Roger, good-by.” “When Roger read Mr. Grey’s letter he had felt sure that the daughter to whose marriage reference was made was Magdalen herself, and the newspaper paragraph and pencil-marks confirmed him in this belief. “Good-by, Roger, good-by.” His white lips whispered the words, which seemed to run into each other and grow dim and blurred as the great tears gathered in his eyes and obscured his vision. “Good-by, Roger, good-by.” Yes, it was good-by forever now, and he felt it in its full force, and bowed his head upon his hands and asked for strength to bear this new pain, which yet was not new, for he had long felt that Magdalen was not for him. But the pain, though old, was keener, harder to bear, and hurt as it had never hurt before, for now the barrier between them, as he believed, was a husband, and that for a time seemed worse than death. Again the rock under the evergreen on the hillside witnessed the tears and the prayers and the anguish of the man whose face began to look old and worn, and who, the people said, was working too hard and had taken too much upon his hands. He was the superintendent now of the cotton mill, which had been enlarged, and of the shoe-shop erected since his residence in Schodick. His profession, too, was not neglected, and the little office on the green still bore his name, and all the farmers for miles around asked for “Squire Irving,” as they called him, when they came into town on business pertaining to the law. His word was trusted before that of any other. What Squire Irving said was true, and no one thought of doubting it. To him the widows came on behalf of their fatherless children, and he listened patiently and advised them always for the best, and took charge of their slender means and made the most of them. The interests of orphan children, too, were committed to his care, so that he fortunately had little time to indulge in sentiment or sorrow, except at night, when the day’s labor was over, and he was free to dwell upon the hopes of the past, the bitter disappointment of the present, and the dreariness of the future. After that paragraph in the newspaper he had heard no more of the Greys, and had only mentioned them once. Then he told Hester of Magdalen’s marriage with the young man who had come to see them, and whom Hester remembered perfectly. Hester did not believe a word of it, she said; but Roger replied that Magdalen herself had sent him the paper, while Mr. Grey had written, so there could be no mistake. Then Hester accepted it as a fact, and looking in her boy’s face and seeing there the pain he tried so hard to suppress, she felt her own heart throbbing with a keener regret and sense of loss than she would have felt if Roger had not cared so much.