"I must never see her again, never, unless I have grown dull and cold, and can greet her as a stranger," he thinks to himself. "How strange that I should love her so. I wonder will I ever be cured, or will this be the 'one passion of my life,' going down to my grave with me even as it has filled all my days and hours? Somehow, I think it will. I find it so hard to forget anything concerning her. Forget! Why there is not a look in her eyes, a word from her lips, not a dress or a flower she has worn that I can forget; not a summer day or a spring morning, not a season in the year that is not full of some memory of her. Oh, my love, my love, and to think that you can be nothing to me--nothing! "Shall I ever be old, I wonder?--and then shall I have ceased to care? Out of all the world of women will there be only one for whom my heart will beat, my pulses thrill, my whole soul long and love? I have tried to love other women--I have told them I love them; but I don't think for one moment I deceived myself, or them. Men say the sins and follies of youth come back to smite us as scourges in the after years; but I suppose my love has kept me pure in a way, and will do so. It was never sin to me till her own act made it so, for she seemed always mine in my thoughts and dreams, and I alone seemed to have the right to her. But now--well, she was wiser than I when she bade me leave her. This last year has only made us both more wretched. And she is not happy--my darling! Ah, when she loved me there was not that sad look in her eyes, and that brute is not even faithful. But of that she knows nothing, and, bad as I am, I wouldn't tell her so. Let her keep her faith unshaken, and live her life of duty. Why should I make it harder than it is? .... Every year now will take her further and further from me, and yet I know she loves me. I wonder what held me back when I bade her farewell? I could have taught her forgetfulness then, if never before; and yet--and yet, thank God, I did not. I think to see her eyes reproach me would be worse than this; I should feel inclined to kill myself and--her. Oh, God! what fools men can be for a woman's sake!" Some one comes softly into the room; it is Andrews the careful and attentive. He brings a letter in his hand, and lays it down on the table by his young master's side. Keith turns towards him, and holds out a thin transparent hand for the missive. He tears open the envelope, and as he looks at the address a flush of colour steals over his face. "Falcon's Chase, Brockfield, "Northumberland. "MY DEAR ATHELSTONE,