“Dear uncle, how could I remain, how can I remain?... after ... after——” Her lips trembled: they could not frame the words of the odious charge which still lay against her fair fame. “And have we been so wanting towards you, Ellinor, all this time, that you feel there is not one of us to whom you could give your confidence?” She gave a little cry as if the reproach had stabbed her. “Ah, no! Tis not like that! Oh, Uncle Horatio, it is because I cannot speak. If you knew, you would be the first to see that I cannot speak.” Then all the shrewd surmises that had been floating in Dr. Tutterville’s brains ever since David’s own confession assumed the complexion of certainty. No need for him to pry further. He knew. At least he knew quite enough. His first triumph at his own sagacity was succeeded by a gush of admiration for the steadfast self-abnegation of the woman. “Keep your secret, child,” he said tenderly. “We are all, mark me, all, quite ready to trust you.” But Ellinor no longer heard him. She was looking past him, towards the house. Her eyes had become fixed—then dilated. She shivered again slightly, and then she stood quite still. David, with long, quick strides, was coming across the chequered shade and light of the avenue. Horatio Tutterville caught his breath slightly and stepped back against the bole of a vast-girthed elm so as to sink his noticeable personality almost out of sight. The crisis had come sooner than he expected. He had planned it to be under Bindon’s roof—well, it was fated to be under the arches of Bindon’s trees! Now were the matters passing out of his muddling hands. Now was the crucial moment of the two lives on which he hung all his own hopes, the lives of those who were to him son and daughter, to whom he looked to be the crown of his old age. Good man, his ambition was selfless enough: all he asked of these two was to be happy! From behind the springing twigs he watched, with a beating heart. When her lover was within a few paces of her, Ellinor, moved by some uncontrollable impulse, went forward to meet him. She took a hasty step or two and then stood, hands outstretched. And David saw her, with a shaft of yellow light striking her white forehead and flaming in her enaureoled hair, poised in lovely waiting for his welcome—even as, now nearly a year ago, he had first seen her and deemed that his beauteous star-vision had taken human shape. There were no words—their hands met. There was no surprise in his eyes: only a great joy. “Something drove me hither,” he said presently, “and it was you! The whole day I could not rest, and you were coming home, coming back to me! Oh, Ellinor, never leave us again! We are dead without you, Bindon and I!” She looked up at him with brimming eyes, eyes as blue as his star. “Never again,” she returned, “if you and Bindon want me!” Then David bent and laid his lips upon hers. And hand-in-hand, gravely they walked together through the trees.