The fire in my room had burned low in my absence. One of the
closed curtains had been drawn back a few inches, so as to admit
through the window a ray of the dying light. On the boundary
limit where the light was crossed by the obscurity which filled
the rest of the room, I saw Miss Dunross seated, with her veil
drawn and her writing-case on her knee, waiting my return.

I hastened to make my excuses. I assured her that I had been
careful to tell the servant where to find me. She gently checked
me before I could say more.

"It's not Peter's fault," she said. "I told him not to hurry your
return to the house. Have you enjoyed your walk?"

She spoke very quietly. The faint, sad voice was fainter and
sadder than ever. She kept her head bent over her writing-case,
instead of turning it toward me as usual while we were talking. I
still felt the mysterious trembling which had oppressed me in the
garden. Drawing a chair near the fire, I stirred the embers
together, and tried to warm myself. Our positions in the room
left some little distance between us. I could only see her
sidewise, as she sat by the window in the sheltering darkness of
the curtain which still remained drawn.

"I think I have been too long in the garden," I said. "I feel
chilled by the cold evening air."

"Will you have some more wood put on the fire?" she asked. "Can I
get you anything?"

"No, thank you. I shall do very well here. I see you are kindly
ready to write for me."

"Yes," she said, "at your own convenience. When you are ready, my
pen is ready."

The unacknowledged reserve that had come between us since we had
last spoken together, was, I believe, as painfully felt by her as
by me. We were no doubt longing to break through it on either
side--if we had only known how. The writing of the letter would
occupy us, at any rate. I made another effort to give my mind to
the subject--and once more it was an effort made in vain. Knowing
what I wanted to say to my mother, my faculties seemed to be
paralyzed when I tried to say it. I sat cowering by the fire--and
she sat waiting, with her writing-case on her lap.

CHAPTER XXII.

SHE CLAIMS ME AGAIN.

THE moments passed; the silence between us continued. Miss
Dunross made an attempt to rouse me.

"Have you decided to go back to Scotland with your friends at
Lerwick?" she asked.

"It is no easy matter," I replied, "to decide on leaving my
friends in this house."

Her head drooped lower on her bosom; her voice sunk as she
answered me.

"Think of your mother," she said. "The first duty you owe is your
duty to her. Your long absence is a heavy trial to her--your
mother is suffering."

"Suffering?" I repeated. "Her letters say nothing--"

"You forget that you have allowed me to read her letters," Miss
Dunross interposed. "I see the unwritten and unconscious
confession of anxiety in every line that she writes to you. You
know, as well as I do, that there is cause for her anxiety. Make
her happy by telling her that you sail for home with your
friends. Make her happier still by telling her that you grieve no
more over the loss of Mrs. Van Brandt. May I write it, in your
name and in those words?"

I felt the strangest reluctance to permit her to write in those
terms, or in any terms, of Mrs. Van Brandt. The unhappy
love-story of my manhood had never been a forbidden subject
between us on former occasions. Why did I feel as if it had
become a forbidden subject now? Why did I evade giving her a
direct reply?

"We have plenty of time before us," I said. "I want to speak to
you about yourself."

She lifted her hand in the obscurity that surrounded her, as if
to protest against the topic to which I had returned. I
persisted, nevertheless, in returning to it.

"If I must go back," I went on, "I may venture to say to you at
parting what I have not said yet. I cannot, and will not, believe
that you are an incurable invalid. My education, as I have told
you, has been the education of a medical man. I am well
acquainted with some of the greatest living physicians, in
Edinburgh as well as in London. Will you allow me to describe
your malady (as I understand it) to men who are accustomed to
treat cases of intricate nervous disorder? And will you let me


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