Still, he had done what she wanted. She had asked him to find her some work to do, and he had complied with her request. Yet his heart smote him as he thought of her--so fair, so fragile, so sensitive. How would she like to be among strangers? Fortunately he had no conception of the true life of a governess in a fashionable family; if he had had, it would have been the last work of the kind he would have chosen for her in whom he was interested. "The work will brace her nerves; it will do her good," he said to himself; "and if by chance she does not like it, she need not stay--there will always be a home for her with us." When he reached home he told her. She appeared neither pleased nor regretful; it seemed to him that the common events of every-day life no longer possessed the least interest for her. She asked no questions about either Lady Dartelle or her place of residence, or how many children she would have to teach. The young girl agreed with him that she would do well to accept the offer. "Are you pleased?" he asked. "Do you think you will like the duties?" "I am very thankful to have some work to do," she replied; "and I am deeply grateful to you, Dr. Chalmers." "You may well be that. I have never made such a sacrifice in my life as that of letting you go, Millicent. I should not have done so but that I think it will be for your good. Your home is still here, and if you do not like Hulme Abbey, I will fetch you away at once." That night when the unhappy girl was alone in her room, she threw up her arms with a despairing cry. "How many years have I to live? How many years can I bear this, and live? Oh! Adrian, Adrian, if I could only look once upon your face and die! Oh, my love, my love, how am I to live and never see your face again?" CHAPTER XXVII. "There is one thing we are quite forgetting," said Dr. Chalmers, "although we call ourselves such clever people." He pointed as he spoke to the little rings of golden hair, soft, fine as silk, light as gold in color, like the small tendrils of a vine in shape. She raised her beautiful, blushing face to his. "You did it," she said, half-reproachfully. "I look just like a boy. What shall I do?" The doctor touched one of the soft golden rings with his finger. "This is anything but the conventional governess style; Millicent should have plain, Madonna-like braids of a dull gray tint--should she not, mother?" "I do not like your plan at all, Robert," said Mrs. Chalmers, looking at her sweet, sad face. "I do not see why Millicent cannot be happy with us, nor why she can not recover her strength here. I suppose you know best. One thing is certain; she cannot leave us thus. Should you like, my dear, to wear hair that was not your own?" "No, I should not like it at all," she replied, her face flushing. The doctor laughed aloud.