`Oh!' she said innocently, `how could I let you go, after we have passed so many happy days together!'

`Those days may never return, Miss Fairlie -- my way of life and yours are very far apart. But if a time should come, when the devotion of my whole heart and soul and strength will give you a moment's happiness, or spare you a moment's sorrow, will you try to remember the poor drawing-master who has taught you? Miss Halcombe has promised to trust me -- will you promise too?'

The farewell sadness in the kind blue eyes shone dimly through her gathering tears.

`I promise it,' she said in broken tones. `Oh, don't look at me like that! I promise it with all my heart.'

I ventured a little nearer to her, and held out my hand.

`You have many friends who love you, Miss Fairlie. Your happy future is the dear object of many hopes. May I say, at parting, that it is the dear object of my hopes too?'

The tears flowed fast down her cheeks- She rested one trembling hand on the table to steady herself while she gave me the other. I took it in mine -- I held it fast. My head drooped over it, my tears fell on it, my lips pressed it -- not in love; oh, not in love, at that last moment, but in the agony and the self- abandonment of despair.

`For God's sake, leave me!' she said faintly.

The confession of her heart's secret burst from her in those pleading words. I had no right to hear them, no right to answer them -- they were the words that banished me, in the name of her sacred weakness, from the room. It was all over. I dropped her hand, I said no more. The blinding tears shut her out from my eyes, and I dashed them away to look at her for the last time. One look as she sank into a chair, as her arms fell on the table, as her fair head dropped on them wearily. One farewell look, and the door had closed upon her -- the great gulf of separation had opened between us -- the image of Laura Fairlie was a memory of the past already.