"Here's Miss Heath, Miss;" and then darted out of the room, leaving the two girls face to face. "They don't like me to see 'em cuddling," he said with a grin; and, urged by the enormous amount of vitality that was in him, Bob bounded to the kitchen stairs to slide down, and, directly after, a gritty rubbing noise, made metrical to accompany the shrill whistling of a tune, arose, the result of the fact that Bob Hartnup, the doctor's boy, who clung to the house with the fidelity of a cat, was cleaning the knives. Bob's facts were correct, if unrefined in expression, for the two girls flew to each other's arms, and as they kissed affectionately, each displayed tears in her eyes, while without relinquishing hands, they sat down together near the window. "No news, Janet?" whispered Richmond. Her visitor shook her head slowly, gazing wistfully the while into her companion's eyes. "We must wait, Rich dear. Africa is a horribly great place, and some day we shall hear that he is coming back." Richmond Chartley made no reply, but sat gazing straight out through the uncleaned window, as if her large clear eyes were looking straight away over the ocean in search of the man she loved. "Don't, don't, darling; don't look like that," whispered the younger girl. "Don't think all that again. It's cruel, it's wicked of them to have said such things. He was too young, and strong, and brave to die." "Please God, yes!" said Richmond simply, but with a deep heart-stirring pathos in the tones of her rich voice. "And one of these days he'll come, dear, like the good prince in the fairy tale, all rich and handsome, as my darling brother always was, and marry my own dear Rich, and make her happy again." "Please God, yes!" said Richmond once more; and this time there was resignation, and despair so plainly marked that her companion flung her arms about her neck and began to sob. "Rich, dear Rich, don't, pray don't, or you'll drive me half mad. I've all my lessons to give to-day. And my hand will tremble, and I shall be so unnerved that I can do nothing." "Janet dear, I try so hard not to despair, but the weary months roll by, and it is two years now since you have had a line." "Yes, but what of that? Perhaps he is where there are no post-offices, or perhaps he is not getting on; and, poor boy, he is too proud to write till he is doing better. Why, he has only been away four years." "Four years!" said Richmond sadly; "is it only four years?" "That's all, dear, though it has seemed like eight, and we will not despair, even though it is so hard to bear. Why, Rich, I feel sometimes when I kneel down at night that if he were dead I should know it; he would not let us go on suffering if it were so." "Janet dear, I feel sometimes as if it was wrong to have loved him." "What, dear Mark?" "Yes." "Wrong? For shame! How could any girl who knew my darling old Mark as you did help loving him?"