A faint sense of something familiar stirred within him as he glanced at the handwriting--a something which he could not quite recall out of the past. He opened the envelope and drew out the letter almost rapidly. It was very short. "DEAR JOHN,--I wonder if I may still call you that, after all the years that have gone by? I would not have troubled you with a letter now, but that I heard, only to-day, that you are ill and alone. And I thought I must write to you for auld lang syne, and ask you whether you would let me come and see you. We are both old people now, John; but let me come to see you, for old sake's sake. "Yours, as ever, "JOAN BENTLEY. "P.S.--Did you never get the letter I wrote you more than thirty years ago?" The letter dropped from his hands. The keen grey eyes grew dim. It was strange that this should have come just when the remembrance had returned to him of the lime-trees in her father's garden, of the bees that had hummed among them forty years ago. His dreary room faded from his sight. It was as if the walls melted into space, and he could feel the warm air of July blowing round him, smell the fragrance of the lime-flowers, step upon the softness of the smooth turf beneath his feet. He was young again! A man with his life before him, and love within his grasp. He could see the tall hollyhocks by the gate--the hollyhocks she loved. There were tall white lilies there as well. The sweetness of them filled the air, mingling with the scent of roses that clambered up the old red wall. The wood-pigeons cooed gently in the copse across the road, and the rooks cawed as they swung upon the boughs of the lime-trees. And Joan's clear eyes looked into his; Joan's voice was in his ear. "Oh, John, will it be long?" he heard her say. And his own voice, young and strong, replied: "No, no, my dear--not long. How could I let it be long, when I shall be working for you? When I have made enough money I shall come and claim you. Your father is quite right not to allow a formal engagement till then. But we understand each other, Joan--my Joan!" Strange! How the years had rolled away, and the world seemed full again, as it had seemed then, of Joan--Joan, and only Joan! The vision slowly faded; the walls of the dull room returned to their places, the noise of the irritating clock on the mantelpiece replaced the soft voices of the wood-pigeons; he was an old man again, an old man who was alone--and dying! But Joan had not forgotten. Joan's letter lay upon his bed. She had remembered for forty years; whilst he had forgotten everything, except the work to which he was a slave. He picked up the letter once more and read the postscript first-- "Did you never get the letter I wrote you more than thirty years ago?" Had he received it? What then had happened to it? A puzzled frown puckered his brow, as he struggled to recall the long past incident.