"Something came between Ronald and me for a little while," she said, her low voice, which had hardly lost its sweetness at all, thrilling the listener with inexpressible pain. "I cannot tell what exactly; but it is all over now, and he is--as he used to be--the best and kindest of brothers. But there is someone--not papa; I am not talking of poor papa now--better and kinder still. Do you know whom I mean?" The sweet steady blue eyes looked at him quite innocent and unabashed. "I Mean _you_." "Me!" he said, looking up hastily; "me!" "Yes; best and kindest of all to me. And when Ronald will not have me any longer, I want you to promise me to be his friend too. They say he is hard in his disposition and his ways; he never was to me, but once for a little while; and I should like him to see you often, and be with you much, that he may be reminded of me. As long as he remembers me he will not be hard to anyone; and he will remember me whenever he sees you." Thus the sister interpreted the brother's late repentance, and endeavoured to render it a source of blessing to the two men whom she loved. "When you left Kilsyth," she said, "and came here, and when I heard the dreadful affliction that had befallen you, it made me very unhappy. It seemed, somehow, awful to me that sorrow should have come to you through me." "It did not," he replied. "Don't think so; don't say so! Did anyone tell you so? It would have come all the same--" "It would not," she said solemnly; "it would not. If I never felt it before, I must have come to feel it now, that I caused unconsciously a dreadful misfortune. You are here with me; you make suffering, you make death, light and easy to me. And you were away from _her_ when she was dying who had a right to look for you by her side. I hope she has forgiven me where all is forgiven." There was silence between them for a while. Wilmot's agony was quite beyond description, and almost beyond even his power of self-control. Madeleine was quite calm; but the bright red spots had faded away from her cheekbones, and she was deadly pale. His eyes were fixed upon her face--eagerly, despairingly, as though he would have fixed it before them for ever, a white phantom to beset, of his free will, all his future life. Another racking fit of coughing came on, and then, when it had subsided, Madeleine fell again into one of the sudden short sleeps which had become habitual to her, and which told Wilmot so plainly of the progress of exhaustion. It was only of a few minutes' duration; and when she again awoke, her cheeks had the red spots on them once more. He watched her more and more eagerly, to see if she would resume the tone in which she had been speaking, and which, while it tortured him to listen to it, he had not the courage to interrupt or interdict. There was a little, a very little more excitement in the voice and in the eyes as she said, "You are not going to be a doctor any more, they tell me, now that you are a rich man."