"I suppose," she went on, "that you remembered me because you were lonely at first, and there was no one else to think of." "Perhaps that was it," he answered. "After all," she said, "it was natural--only I never thought"-- "It was as natural that you should forget as that I should remember," he said. Her face had been slightly averted, and she turned it toward him. "But I did not forget," she said. "You did not?" "No. At first, it is true, I scarcely seemed to have time for anything, but to be happy and enjoy the days, as they went by. Oh! what bright days they were, and how far away they seem! Perhaps, if I had known that they would come to an end really, I might have tried to make them pass more slowly." "They went slowly for me," he said. "I was glad when they were over." "Were you so very lonely!" she asked. "Yes." "Would it have pleased you, if I had written to you when papa did?" "Did you ever think of doing it?" he asked. The expression dawning in her eyes was a curious one--there was a suggestion of dread in it. "Once," she replied. "I began a letter to you. It was on a dull day, when I was restless and unhappy for the first time in my life; and suddenly I thought of you, and I felt as if I should like to speak to you again,--and I began the letter." "But you did not finish it." "No. I only wrote a few lines, and then stopped. I said to myself that it was not likely that you had remembered me in the way I had remembered you, so I laid my letter aside. I saw it only a few days ago among some old papers in my trunk." "You have it yet?" "I did not know that I had it, until I saw it the other day. It seems strange that it should have lain hidden all these years, and then have come to light. I laid it away thinking I might find courage to finish it sometime. There are only a few lines, but they prove that my memory was not so bad as you thought." He had been lying on the grass a few feet away from her. As she talked he had looked not at her, but at the bits of blue sky showing through the interlacing greenness of the trees above him. Now he suddenly half rose and leaned upon his elbow. "Will you give it to me?" he said. "Do you want it? It is only a yellow scrap of paper." "I think it belongs to me," he said. "I have a right to it." She got up without a word and went toward the house, leading Meg by the hand. Tredennis watched her retreating figure in silence until she went in at the door. His face set, and his lips pressed together, then he flung himself backward and lay at full length again, seeing only the bright green of the leaves and the bits of intense blue between. It was well that he was alone. His sense of impotent anguish was more than he had strength to bear, and it wrung a cry from him. "My God!" he said; "my God!" He was still lying so when Bertha returned. She had not been away many minutes, and she came back alone with the unfinished letter in her hand.