“Oh! that man?  He was a Pole, Michaelowyzcki, or some such name.  At least, so he said; but he suspected the man to be really a Russian spy.”

Grace knew that it was Tom:  but she went back to her work again, and in due time went home to England.

Home, but not to Aberalva.  She presented herself one day at Mark Armsworth’s house in Whitbury, and humbly begged him to obtain her a place as servant to old Dr. Thurnall.  What her purpose was therein she did not explain; perhaps she hardly knew herself.

Jane, the old servant who had clung to the doctor through his reverses, was growing old and feeble, and was all the more jealous of an intruder:  but Grace disarmed her.

“I do not want to interfere; I will be under your orders.  I will be kitchen-maid—­maid-of-all-work.  I want no wages.  I have brought home a little money with me; enough to last me for the little while I shall be here.”

And, by the help of Mark and Mary, she took up her abode in the old man’s house; and ere a month was past she was to him as a daughter.

Perhaps she had told him all.  At least, there was some deep and pure confidence between them; and yet one which, so perfect was Grace’s humility, did not make old Jane jealous.  Grace cooked, swept, washed, went to and fro as Jane bade her; submitted to all her grumblings and tossings; and then came at the old man’s bidding to read to him every evening, her hand in his; her voice cheerful, her face full of quiet light.  But her hair was becoming streaked with gray.  Her face, howsoever gentle, was sharpened, as if with continual pain.  No wonder; for she had worn that belt next her heart for now two years and more, till it had almost eaten into the heart above which it lay.  It gave her perpetual pain:  and yet that pain was a perpetual joy—­a perpetual remembrance of him, and of that walk with him from Tolchard’s farm.

Mary loved her—­wanted to treat her as an equal—­to call her sister:  but Grace drew back lovingly, but humbly, from all advances; for she had divined Mary’s secret with the quick eye of woman; she saw how Mary grew daily paler, thinner, sadder, and knew for whom she mourned.  Be it so; Mary had a right to him, and she had none.

* * * * *

And where was Tom Thurnall all the while?

No man could tell.

Mark inquired; Lord Minchampstead inquired; great personages who had need of him at home and abroad inquired:  but all in vain.

A few knew, and told Lord Minchampstead, who told Mark, in confidence, that he had been heard of last in the Circassian mountains, about Christmas, 1854:  but since then all was blank.  He had vanished into the infinite unknown.

Mark swore that he would come home some day:  but two full years were past, and Tom came not.

The old man never seemed to regret him; never mentioned his name after a while.