Therefore, when Ulfar bade her farewell she had felt as if standing on the void of the universe. It was the superhuman woman within her that had answered him, and that had held up her head and had strengthened her for her part all through that merciless ride. And the sight of her handsome, faithless lover, the tones of his voice, the touch of his hand, his half-respectful, half-pitying kindness, had awakened in her heart a tenfold love for him.

For she understood then, for the first time, her social and educational inferiority. She felt even that she had done herself less than justice in her fine raiment: her country breeding and simple beauty would have appeared to greater advantage in the white merino she had desired to wear. She had been forced into a dress that accentuated her deficiencies. At that hour she thought she could never see Mrs. Frostham again.

To these tempestuous, humiliating, heart-breaking reflections the storm outside made an angry accompaniment. The 116 wind howled down the chimney and wailed around the house, and the rain beat against the window and pattered on the flagged walks. The darkness came on early, and the cold grew every hour more searching. She was not insensible to these physical discomforts, but they seemed so small a part of her misery that she made no resistance to their attack. Will and Brune, sitting almost speechless downstairs, were both thinking of her. When it was quite dark they grew unhappy. First one and then the other 117 crept softly to her room door. All was as still as death. No movement, no sound of any kind, betrayed in what way the poor soul within suffered. No thread of light came from beneath the door: she was in the dark, and she had eaten nothing all day.

To these tempestuous,

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About six o’clock Will could bear it no longer. He knocked softly at her door, and said: “My little lass, speak to Will! Have a cup of tea! Do have a cup of tea, dearie!”

The voice was so unlike Will’s voice that it startled Aspatria. It told her of a suffering almost equalling her own. She rose from the chair in which she had been sitting for hours, and went to him. The room was dark, the passage was dark; he saw nothing but the denser dark of her figure, and her white face above it. She saw nothing but his great bulk and his shining eyes. But she felt the love flowing out from his heart to her, she felt his sorrow and his sympathy, and it comforted her. She said: “Will, do not fret 

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