She closed the drawer and fell on her knees, praying that he might be given back to her; but she stopped abruptly after she had repeated her imploration. “Give him back tome!” For the truth came upon her with a shock: it was not her heart that was uttering that imploration. “Dead love lives nevermore; No, not in heaven!” That was what her heart was murmuring, while the vain repetition came from her lips: “Give him back to me--give him back to me!” But before she had closed her eyes in sleep she had come to the conclusion that she had been somewhat unjust toward him. She felt that it was her wounded vanity which had caused her to be angry with him. She should have known that his first thought on returning to the house where he had lived with his brother, would be of his brother. She should have known that the reflection that he was for ever separated from the brother to whom he had ever been deeply attached, would take possession of him, excluding every other thought--even the thought that he had returned to be loved by her. She felt that it should now be her duty to lead him back to her. So soon as the poignancy of his reflection that he was for ever separated from his brother had become less, he would turn to her for comfort, and he would be comforted. The memory of their old love would come back to him, and all the happiness to which she had looked forward for both of them would be theirs. Would it not be possible for them to gather up the fragments of their shattered love as she had gathered up the fragments of the picture she had broken? Alas, the question which she asked herself failed to bring her happiness; for she knew that no hand could piece together the broken ivory which she had hidden away in her drawer; and still her heart kept moaning: “Dead love lives nevermore; No, not in heaven!” The next morning her maid brought her among her letters one in a strange handwriting. It was signed “Clare Tristram.” The name brought back to her long-distant memories of the girl bearing this name, who was to have married Agnes's uncle--her mother's brother, but who on the eve of the wedding, had fled with another man. She recalled some of the incidents of the story, the most important being that she had been deprived of the privilege of wearing her bridesmaid's dress. She recollected that this had been a great grief to her; she had been about eleven years of age when that disappointment overtook her, and now she could not help recalling how, when she had been told by her mother that Clare Tristram had gone away to marry some one else, she had obligingly offered to wear the dress upon the occasion of Miss Tristram's wedding to somebody else, for she thought it would be a great pity that so lovely a dress should be locked up in a drawer.