"Nay, let me speak," he said calmly. "I recalled that day when you bade me be friend and brother to you, and life seemed to be one blank despair. I remembered how I prayed for strength, and how that strength came, how I vowed that I would be friend and brother to you and yours; and when the time of tribulation came was my act so unbrotherly in your distress?" She was silent. "Millicent Hallam, do you think that I have not loved your child as tenderly as if she had been my own? Fate gave me money. Well, men, as a rule, spend their money in a way that affords them the most pleasure. I am only a weak man, and I have done the same." "You have kept yourself poor that we might live in idleness." "You are wrong," he said, with a quiet laugh. "I was never richer than during these peaceful years--that have now come to an end," he added sorrowfully; "and you would make me poor once more. There," he continued, speaking quickly, "I confess all. Forgive me. I could not see you in want." "I should not have been in want," she said proudly. "If I had known that it was necessary I should work, the toil would have come easily to my hands. I should have toiled on for my child's sake, and waited patiently until my husband bade me come." "But you forgive me?" he said, in his old tone. For answer she sank upon the floor at his feet, covering her face with her hands; and he heard her sobbing. "Good-night," he said at last. "I will send Julie." He bent down and laid his fingers softly upon her head for a moment, and was turning to go, but she caught at his hand and held it. "A moment," she cried; "best and truest friend. Forgive me, and mine-- when we are divided, as we shall be--for life, try--pray for me--pray for him--and believe in him--as you do in me--my husband, Christie Bayle--my poor martyred husband." "And I am forgiven?" he said. "Forgiven!" She said no more, and he passed quickly into the room where Julia was anxiously awaiting his return. "Doctor--Mrs Luttrell," he said, "you must try and calm her, or she will not be able to undertake this journey. Julie, my child, try what you can do. Good-night. Good-night." As the door closed after him, Mrs Hallam walked back into the room looking calm and stern; but her face softened as Julia clung to her and then seated herself at her mother's feet, the next hours passing so peacefully that it was impossible to believe that the time for parting was so near. VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER TWELVE. OVER THE SEA.