"Why? Never mind why; I am content. I like the collectedness that has come upon me. It cannot arise from the title or the estates. I am leaving all the money behind me, and for all practical purposes the title also. When I go away I shall be nothing more than a Government clerk in the foreign service. When I get there, the few Europeans I know may not have heard of Sir Alexander's death. It is not the title or the money. What has done it? "Before I knew Maud I always fancied anyone called Maud should be young and fragile and exquisitely fair; and my Maud (she is mine, for are we not of the one house?) is young and fragile and exquisitely fair. "Maud. "What a musical name it is! The lips and ears never tire of it. The oftener you say it the more beautiful it seems. It is a name you must speak softly. You cannot shout it out or fancy yourself saying it angrily. Imagine for a moment my speaking angrily to my Maud! "Speaking angrily to Maud! The mere supposition is like a blow. Maud is sanctified to me doubly, as being the last daughter of our family, and as being friendless. "When I go away I shall leave my fortune and my title behind me. Shall I leave anything else? Yes, everything else. Maud. "If I leave my fortune and my title and Maud behind me, what do I take with me? "Nothing worth the carriage. "Bounteous God, I thank Thee with all my heart, and all my soul, and all the faculties of my nature, for having given love to man, and having given me to love!" The evening of the day Grey had visited the Island after his return from London, the two cousins sat alone in the little drawing-room after dinner. "Maud, will you take great care of yourself while I am away?" he asked very earnestly. She was sitting by a small ebony table in front of the fire. He reclined in an easy-chair at the opposite side of the grate. She looked up with a childish amused smile, and answered: "Yes; I will try and take care of myself while you are away. This is a very safe place to live in. No one can get near us without a boat, and everyone knows that a farmer's house would be better for thieves than Island Castle." "And yet, Maud, though no man come, something very precious might be stolen by a thief while I am away." He spoke gravely, with that old far-away look in his eyes. "And who is the thief, and what is the thing?" she asked, with a bright smile. "Ruffian Death," he answered, for a moment overwhelmed by some dark dread and chilling foreboding. She grew paler in her black dress; the hand resting on the table seemed whiter than life. "But, William, I am quite well; I never felt better in all my life; and I think, considering what has lately happened, that is very wonderful." She was anxious, and looked into his face with eyes of grave solicitude. Still he was following up the chain of his thoughts, and for the moment, unaware, he uttered them: