Davy looked at her, wondering. He had never seen her cry before. He put the other arm round her neck and kissed her gravely on each cheek. Immediately afterwards he gave her up as a bad job, being quite unable to fathom such a depth of grief as two kisses from him were not sufficient to cure. That would be the way with him all his days. He was made, in his careless beauty, to win hearts without trying, to be loved and worshipped and wept over. There would always be plenty of Elfridas thankful to work for him in the shadow, while he walked through life in the sunshine. But now her willing slavery was ending. The last words were spoken. The old shoe was thrown after her for luck. The setting sun was turning the river--her old comrade--into a sheet of gold. Elfrida rode away up into the hills behind her goodman, and the ferry-boat knew her no more. 'Life,' said Martha Clifford musingly, 'is a muddle. Births and deaths--comings and goings--weddings and funerals--the young marry and the old die; that's the way of the world.' She was standing by my father's bedside as she reflected thus. Elfrida's was the wedding that was just past; my father's the death that it seemed would follow hard upon it. He had been failing all the winter; but now we counted his remaining life by days, nay, it might be, by hours. Martha had softened towards me since he was 'taken,' as she called it, 'for death.' Both she and Hildred helped to tend him. And it came about that, before my father died, even the cause of difference that had been between us was taken away. It was but natural that they should blame me for still clinging to such a mere shadow as the hope that Cuthbert might be alive. But I thought that it must be God Himself who kept alight in my heart the little spark of faith that no one shared, and that would not be extinguished. Now I know that it was so. For I was right after all. At last--at last, he came. One evening, after Martha and Hildred had gone home and I was alone downstairs, I heard the latch move as if some one was trying to lift it with an unsteady hand. Then the door opened, and the sunshine and the shadow fell across the floor--a man's shadow. I looked round carelessly, for I was not thinking of him then. Other cares--my father's illness and Hildred's presence, had driven him lately out of my mind. He had not been so far from my thoughts for years as lately, when day by day he was coming nearer to me. Now, as I was telling you, I saw a shadow cast from the doorway. I turned round. There, on the threshold stood a soldier in a worn greatcoat--a dark man, with the empty sleeve of his right arm fastened across his breast. As I got up, he took off his hat and spoke my name. How did we meet? I cannot tell. What words does one use after such a parting? How can you greet one, come back, as it were, through the grave and gate of death? I only remember hearing myself say over and over again, 'Cuthbert, Cuthbert.'