Such meetings and partings are not uncommon. Sometimes the two thus rent asunder at the critical moment, never meet again at all, and the incipient romance dies in the bud, leaving (very often) a touch of bitterness in the woman’s heart, a sense of incompleteness in the man’s. Sometimes the two meet when age has developed or altered them, and when they ask themselves with horror what they could possibly have seen in that man or that woman? And sometimes they meet again voluntarily or involuntarily, and--that happens which pleases heaven; for it is impossible to predict the termination of such an interrupted tale. Reine had not found it very easy to piece that broken bit of her life into the web again. She had never said a word to any one, never allowed herself to speak to herself of what she felt; but it had not been easy to bear. Honor, too, like everything else, takes a different aspect as it is regarded by man or woman. Everard had thought that honor absolutely sealed his lips from the moment that he knew, or rather believed, that his fortune was gone; but Reine would have been infinitely more ready to give him her fullest trust, and would have felt an absolute gratitude to him had he spoken out of his poverty, and given her the pleasure of sympathizing, of consoling, of adding her courage and constancy to his. She was too proud to have allowed herself to think that there was any want of honor in the way he left her, for Reine would have died rather than have had the pitiful tribute of a declaration made for honor’s sake; but yet, had it not been her case, but a hypothetical one, she would have pronounced it to be most honorable to speak, while the man would have felt a single word inconsistent with his honor! So we must apparently go on misunderstanding each other till the end of time. It was a case in which there was a great deal to be said on both sides, the reader will perceive. But all this was over; and the two whom a word might have made one were quite free, quite independent, and might each have married some one else had they so chosen, without the other having a word to say; and yet they could not meet without a certain embarrassment, without a sense of what might have been. They were not lovers, and they were not indifferent to each other, and on both sides there was just a little wholesome bitterness. Reine, though far too proud to own it, had felt herself forsaken. Everard, since his return from the active work which had left him little time to think, had felt himself slighted. She had said that, now Herbert was better, it was not worth while writing so often! and when he had got over that unkind speech, and had written, as good as offering himself to join them, she had not replied. He had written in October, and now it was nearly Christmas, and she had never replied. So there was, the reader will perceive, a most hopeful and promising grievance on both sides. Reine