Life began for her again--life on a new and yet on the old basis; for it was still waiting, waiting--she seemed to be among those whose lot it is to "stand and wait" all their days. But it was not now in the absolute darkness and silence which it used to be. She knew that in all human probability Robert Roy was alive still some where, and hope never could wholly die out of the world so long as he was in it. His career, too, if not prosperous in worldly things, had been one to make any heart that loved him content--content and proud. For if he had failed in his fortunes, was it not from doing what she would most have wished him to do--the right, at all costs? Nor had he quite forgotten her, since even so late as five years back he had been making inquiries about her. Also, he was then unmarried. But human nature is weak, and human hearts are so hungry sometimes. "Oh, if he had only loved me, and told me so!" she said, sometimes, as piteously as fifteen years ago. But the tears which followed were not, as then, a storm of passionate despair--only a quiet sorrowful rain. For what could she do? Nothing. Now as ever, her part seemed just to fold her hands and endure. If alive, he might be found some day; but now she could not find him--oh, if she could! Had she been the man and he the woman--nay, had she been still herself, a poor lonely governess, having to earn every crumb of her own bitter bread, yet knowing that he loved her, might not things have been different? Had she belonged to him, they would never have lost one another. She would have sought him, as Evangeline sought Gabriel, half the world over. And little did her two girls imagine, as they called her down stairs that night, secretly wondering what important business could make "Auntie" keep tea waiting fully five minutes, and set her after tea to read some "pretty poetry," especially Longfellow's, which they had a fancy for--little did they think, those two happy creatures, listening to their middle-aged governess, who read so well that sometimes her voice actually faltered over the line, how there was being transacted under their very eyes a story which in its "constant anguish of patience" was scarcely less pathetic than that of Acadia. For nearly a year after that letter came the little family of which Miss Williams was the head went on in its innocent quiet way, always planning, yet never making a change, until at last fate drove them to it. Neither Helen nor Janetta were very healthy girls, and at last a London doctor gave as his absolute fiat that they must cease to live in their warm inland village, and migrate, for some years at any rate, to a bracing sea-side place.