“Poor laddie, poor laddie,” the little lady said again, letting her tears flow freely. “I don’t think it was so much your fault as sister’s and mine. We ought to have let you go out into the world sooner. It would probably have made all the difference. Are you quite sure there is no hope?” “There is none now, but if he does not come back I shall still hope in the future. She will not care for anyone else, I think, and by and by, perhaps, she will forget. I shall go on hoping that if such a time comes she will turn to me.” “I believe it will come, Jack,” Miss Mary said hopefully, “and that in the end she will indeed turn to you.” “But I must do something to feel more worthy of her auntie, and when I come back I must come with something to offer. I feel as if I had yet to prove to her that I am a man,” and he half smiled with a very wistful expression. “She has lectured me so often on being idle and wasting my life; and I always meant to begin at something but somehow it got put off. Perhaps it was just staying in Omeath spoilt everything. I feel as if I should be different altogether when I get away from the fishing, and shooting, and boating, among hardworking chaps.” He paused, then added: “You must tell me everything about her that you possibly can, and perhaps—perhaps when I come back she will be waiting for me.” “I believe she will, Jack, I do, indeed,” and then the little lady kissed him lovingly and went back to tell her sister. But it was a long, weary night for all of them. Jack’s hopefulness was only intermittent and vanished again almost as soon as it came, leaving him a prey to vain, pitiless regret and longing. As for the two little ladies, it was many years since they had spent sadder hours. Far into the night they wept silently, quite unable to comfort each other. That he must go away was so terrible to them; that he must go away in trouble was only worse. In a few weeks The Ghan House would be empty and their birdling flown, and the desolation in Omeath would be terrible beyond words. Once before life had dealt them a bitter blow, and for years joy had been crushed beneath it. Then Jack had come, and their old friend the General with his young wife, and life had smiled on them again, and it had seemed that they had found a “desired haven” for the remainder of their years. And now, suddenly, the cup was dashed from their lips again, and the old, old bitterness offered, instead, and for that one night poor human nature rebelled. Only the next morning it was as if the words, “Peace be still,” had been spoken through the silence of the starlit heavens, and two sweet, calm faces greeted Jack at the breakfast-table. For sorrow does not come _so_ hard upon the old as upon the young, since when half the journey is over and can be looked back upon, for those who have eyes to see there is ever the God-light visible shining through the darkest hours.