"What do you believe?"

"You will laugh at me if I tell you. I am afraid my first reading
of your face was wrong--I am afraid you are a hard man."

"Indeed you do me an injustice. I entreat you to answer me as
frankly as usual. What do I lose in losing the last relic of
Mary?"

"You lose the one hope I have for you," she answered,
gravely--"the hope of your meeting and your marriage with Mary in
the time to come. I was sleepless last night, and I was thinking
of your pretty love story by the banks of the bright English
lake. The longer I thought, the more firmly I felt the conviction
that the poor child's green flag is destined to have its innocent
influence in forming your future life. Your happiness is waiting
for you in that artless little keepsake! I can't explain or
justify this belief of mine. It is one of my eccentricities, I
suppose--like training my cats to perform to the music of my
harp. But, if I were your old friend, instead of being only your
friend of a few days, I would leave you no peace--I would beg and
entreat and persist, as only a woman _can_ persist--until I had
made Mary's gift as close a companion of yours, as your mother's
portrait in the locket there at your watch-chain. While the flag
is with you, Mary's influence is with you; Mary's love is still
binding you by the dear old tie; and Mary and you, after years of
separation, will meet again!"

The fancy was in itself pretty and poetical; the earnestness
which had given expression to it would have had its influence
over a man of a far harder nature than mine. I confess she had
made me ashamed, if she had done nothing more, of my neglect of
the green flag.

"I will look for it the moment I am at home again," I said; "and
I will take care that it is carefully preserved for the future."

"I want more than that," she rejoined. "If you can't wear the
flag about you, I want it always to be _with_ you--to go wherever
you go. When they brought your luggage here from the vessel at
Lerwick, you were particularly anxious about the safety of your
traveling writing-desk--the desk there on the table. Is there
anything very valuable in it?"

"It contains my money, and other things that I prize far more
highly--my mother's letters, and some family relics which I
should be very sorry to lose. Besides, the desk itself has its
own familiar interest as my constant traveling companion of many
years past."

Miss Dunross rose, and came close to the chair in which I was
sitting.

"Let Mary's flag be your constant traveling companion," she said.
"You have spoken far too gratefully of my services here as your
nurse. Reward me beyond my deserts. Make allowances, Mr.
Germaine, for the superstitious fancies of a lonely, dreamy
woman. Promise me that the green
flag shall take its place among the other little treasures in
your desk!"

It is needless to say that I made the allowances and gave the
promise--gave it, resolving seriously to abide by it. For the
first time since I had known her, she put her poor, wasted hand
in mine, and pressed it for a moment. Acting heedlessly under my
first grateful impulse, I lifted her hand to my lips before I
released it. She started--trembled--and suddenly and silently
passed out of the room.

CHAPTER XXI.

SHE COMES BETWEEN US.

WHAT emotion had I thoughtlessly aroused in Miss Dunross? Had I
offended or distressed her? Or had I, without meaning it, forced
on her inner knowledge some deeply seated feeling which she had
thus far resolutely ignored?

I looked back through the days of my sojourn in the house; I
questioned my own feelings and impressions, on the chance that
they might serve me as a means of solving the mystery of her
sudden flight from the room.

What effect had she produced on me?

In plain truth, she had simply taken her place in my mind, to the
exclusion of every other person and every other subject. In ten
days she had taken a hold on my sympathies of which other women
would have failed to possess themselves in so many years. I
remembered, to my shame, that my mother had but seldom occupied
my thoughts. Even the image of Mrs. Van Brandt--except when the
conversation had turned on her--had become a faint image in my
mind! As to my friends at Lerwick, from Sir James downward, they
had all kindly come to see me--and I had secretly and
ungratefully rejoiced when their departure left the scene free
for the return of my nurse. In two days more the Government
vessel was to sail on the return voyage. My wrist was still
painful when I tried to use it; but the far more serious injury
presented by the re-opened wound was no longer a subject of


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