“So much the better, if it was a hard heart,” rejoined Margaret, smiling. “Who was it that said, ‘If your heart is broken, give the pieces to Christ and He will mend it again’? Never think of Bobby, dear Madame Gobelli, except as with Christ--walking with Him, talking with Him, learning of Him and growing in grace and the love of God daily! Never disassociate the two memories, and in a little while you would hate yourself if you could separate them again. God bless you! I must go back to my husband now!” “You will come again?” said the Baroness. “I am afraid I shall have no time! We sail for India on Saturday, but I shall not forget you. Good-bye, Bobby,” she repeated, with a last look at the corpse, “remember your mother and me in your prayers.” As Miss Wynward let her out of the Red House, she remarked, “I could never have believed that anyone could have had so much influence over her ladyship as you have, Mrs. Pullen. I hope you will come again.” “I shall not be able to do so. But Madame Gobelli will have you to talk to her! You live here altogether, do you not?” “I have lived here for many years, but I am on the point of leaving. Bobby was my only tie to the Red House, or I should have gone long ago.” “But now that the Baroness is so helpless surely you will delay your departure until she no longer needs you.” “I shall not leave her until she has secured a better woman in my stead. But to tell you the truth, I am going to be married, Mrs. Pullen, and I consider my first duty is towards my future husband and his parents who are very old!” “Oh! doubtless! May I ask his name?” “Captain Hill! He lives in the next house to this--Stevenage! You are surprised, perhaps, that a man who has been in the army should marry a poor governess like myself. That is his goodness. I know that I am worn and faded and no longer young--thirty-three on my last birthday--but he is good enough to care for me all the more for the troubles I have passed through. Mine has been a chequered life, Mrs. Pullen, but I have told Captain Hill everything, and he still wishes to make me his wife! I ought to be a happy woman for the future, ought I not?” “Indeed yes,” said Margaret, heartily, “and I sincerely hope that you may be so! But I can’t help thinking of poor Madame Gobelli! Is the Baron good to her?” “Pretty well!” answered Miss Wynward, “but he is very stolid and unsympathetic! It is strange to think that her heart must have been bound up in that boy, and yet at times she was positively cruel to him!” “It has all been permitted for some good purpose,” said Margaret, as she bade her farewell, “perhaps her remorse and self-accusation are the only things which would have brought her down upon her knees.”