For one delicious moment Heaven seemed to open to her. She forgot everything but that he loved her. Then with a cry she pushed him away from her, and stood hiding her face in her hands, too wretched, too utterly miserable, for tears or any outward expression. He stood aghast; he had seen the joy in her face and now what did this mean? She turned towards him hurriedly; he must not stand there; he must not be left for one moment in ignorance. With suppressed passion she told him all, how she had misinterpreted his words, and how she had tried to forget him; of her sister's illness, and of her own marriage. Once she began to speak the words rushed from her lips. She told him of her cruel and bitter disappointment about Grace, and she asked him wildly to help her. "What am I to do!" she cried. "Help me!" He heard her with the bitterest feeling against the man who had used her love for her sister, only in the end to break faith with her. It was terrible to him to see Margaret, always so calm and so self-possessed, in such deep and terrible agitation. His grief for her was so powerful that his own sank into nothingness beside it. He had always thought her great unselfishness one of her greatest perfections, but the devotion to her sister was to him quite wonderful. In calm tones that did not yet entirely hide the agitation he fain would conceal from her, he, upon his side, explained his promise to his mother, and his journey and her death. Through all her misery came the clearing away of a cloud. She had not erred, and he had loved her! They stood side by side, silent after that lifting of the veil from both their hearts, he noting with agony the transparency which filled him with alarm. She had asked him for help, and he would help her. "Let me have your sister's address," he said; "there is only one thing I want now to understand, why did Mrs. Dorriman never tell you of my visit?" "Mrs. Dorriman?" "Yes! Finding I could get no news of you I went there and saw her. She did not know where you were, but I let her see how anxious I was to find you. I let her know I loved you, Margaret; did she never speak of me to you?" "Never," said poor Margaret, falteringly. "Ah!" she said, as a sudden gleam came to her memory, "I remember now she tried to tell me something, and I would not listen. I did not know--how could I know--it referred to you?" "Would it have been too late?" he asked, in a low voice. "I do not know," she said, passing her hand across her tearless eyes. "I cannot say what I might have done; but then I had promised----Is it not hard?" she exclaimed. "Oh! it does seem hard, to have had happiness within my grasp and to have lost it!" He was inexpressibly affected, afraid of making things harder for her; he moved to go. "You will always be to me my highest type of womanhood," he said. "Will you trust me about your sister? I will go to England to-night."