“Well: when my father speculated and was so unfortunate (it was really more for my sake than for any other reason that he speculated--and then he was drawn on) it became impossible to carry my engagement out. The gentleman I was engaged to, was not very well off then. We had to think what was best for both of us. We agreed that it would be best to break it off. I should only have been a sort of millstone round his neck. People might have expected him to help papa. And his own means were quite limited then. He had not been supposed a good match for me in my wealthy days--and when the tables were turned in this way, we both thought it was better to part.” “And did the fellow let you go--did he give you up? The wretched cad!” cried James Rowland, adding this violent expression of opinion under his breath. “You must not speak so, Mr. Rowland; it was a mutual agreement. We both, I need hardly say, felt it very much. I--for a long time. Indeed, it has had an influence upon all my life. Don’t think I have regretted it,” she said eagerly, “for if we had not done it by mutual agreement as we did, with a sense of the necessity--we should have been forced to do it. For as it turned out, I could not have left my father. He was very much shattered. It cost him a great deal to give up his home. He had been born there, and all his people before him.” “And you, I suppose, were born there too, and all your people before you?” “I? Oh! that was nothing! Wherever one is with one’s own belongings, there is home. It doesn’t matter for anything else. But it was more sad than words can say for poor papa. He had to move into the village to a little house. He bore it like a hero, thinking that it was best not to hide himself as if he had done any wrong. Misfortune and loss are not wrong. I want you,” she said, gently, having raised her head for that one profession of faith, but dropping into the usual quiet tone again, “to know exactly all about us before--” “And did you ever see that--man again?” The adjectives that were implied in the pause James Rowland made before he brought out the word “man” were lost upon Evelyn, who probably could not have imagined anything so forcible, not to say profane. “Yes,” she said quietly, “often. We could not help it, to go anywhere he had to go through our village. He removed very soon, which was the kindest thing he could have done.” “The vile cad!” said James Rowland between his teeth. “What did you say?” she asked with a startled look: but the engineer did not repeat those words. “I am sure I for one am very much obliged to him,” he said, getting up and walking about the room. “I’m not the man to object. He did the best thing he could have done for me. And you nursed your poor father till he died; and then you came from one trouble to another.”