“Oh, do not touch me!” she said. “We deceived him, we lied to him! if not in words, yet in deeds. And now you are glad that he is dead.” “Not glad,” said the young man. “Not glad! and I?” she cried, with an exclamation of despair. “Winnie, do not make yourself more miserable than you need be; you are not glad. And you will reproach yourself and be wretched for many a day, without reason. I declare before Heaven without reason, Winnie! All that you have done has been for his sake. And there is nothing for which you can justly blame yourself. All that has been done has been sacrifice on your part.” He came to her side and put his arm round her to console her. But his touch was more than she could bear. She put out her hand and put his away. He looked at her for a moment without saying anything, and then asked, with a little bitterness, “Do you mean to cast me off then, Winnie, because I denied myself for his sake?” “Oh, Edward!” she said, giving him her hand; “don’t say a word of you and me. I cannot tell you what I mean, or what I feel, not now. To be as strangers while he lived, and the moment--the very moment he is gone”-- She rose up and began to walk about the room in a feverish misery which was more like personal despair than the grief of a child for a father; angry, miserable even because of the very sense of deliverance which mingled with the anguish. The painful interview was broken by the rush into the room of Miss Farrell, her white locks all disordered about her pretty old head, stumbling over her long dressing-gown, and throwing herself with tears and caresses upon Winifred’s shoulder. “Oh, my darling, your dear father! Oh, my child, come to me and let me comfort you!” she said.