The old man’s beautiful voice had a strange thrill in it. He looked as if he were a king, to the girl who watched him; all the mystery of his early days, the unexplained self-denial and indifference to luxury, seemed at this moment more incomprehensible than ever. The dark little room, the unequal companionship with the wife who slept by the fire, the friendship of his heart with a few imperial books, and the traditions of a high ancestry made evident in the noble careers and present standing of his sons, were enough to touch any imagination. And Mary Hamilton, from her early childhood, had found him the best and wisest man she knew. He had set the humblest Berwick children their copies, and taught them to read and spell, and shared his St. Augustine and Homer and Horace with those few who could claim the right. She stood beside him now in her day of trouble; she turned, with a look of deep love on her face, and kissed him on the brow. Whatever the cause had been, he had taken upon himself the harsh penalty of exile. "Dear friend, I must be gone," said Mary, with beautiful womanliness and dignity. "You have helped me again who have never failed me; do not forget me in these days, and let us pray for Roger Wallingford, that he may be steadfast. Good-by, dear master." Then, a minute later, the old man heard the horse’s quick feet go away down the hill. It was twilight in the room. "I believe she will love the boy," whispered the old schoolmaster to himself. "I thought the captain might wake her heart with all his gallantry. The springs of love are living in her heart, but ’t is winter still,—’t is winter still! Love frights at first more than it can delight; ’t will fright my little lady ere it comes!" The heavy book slipped unheeded to the floor again. The tired old woman slept on by the dying fire, and Master Sullivan was lost in his lonely thoughts, until Hope came again to his side, bright shining in a dream. *XVIII* *OH HAD I WIST!——* "You need not go into a desert and fast, a crowd is often more lonely than a wilderness and small things harder to do than great." The ship had run between Belle Isle and the low curving shores of Quiberon. The land was in sight all along by St. Nazaire, where they could see the gray-green of winter fields, and the dotted fruit trees about the farmhouses, and bits of bushy woodland. Out of the waste of waters the swift way-wise little Ranger came heading safely in at the mouth of the Loire. She ran among all the shoals and sand banks by Paimboeuf, and past the shipyards of the river shores, until she came to harbor and let her anchor go.