“I am not surprised to find you here,” I said, taking the dear girl’s hand, by a sort of mechanical mode of manifesting affection which had grown up between us from childhood, rather than from, any sudden impulse—­“you that watched over her so faithfully during the last hours of her existence.”

“Ah!  Miles,” returned a voice that was filled with sadness, “how little did I anticipate this when you spoke of Grace in the brief interview we had at the theatre!”

I understood my companion fully.  Lucy had been educated superior to cant and false morals.  Her father drew accurate and manly distinctions between sin and the exactions of a puritanical presumption that would set up its own narrow notions as the law of God; and, innocent as she was, no thought of error was associated with the indulgence of her innocent pleasures.  But Grace, suffering and in sorrow, while she herself had been listening to the wonderful poems of Shakspeare, did present a painful picture to her mind, which, so far from being satisfied with what she had done in my sister’s behalf, was tenderly reproachful on account of fancied omissions.

“It is the will of God, Lucy,” I answered.  “It must be our effort to be resigned.”

“If you can think thus, Miles, how much easier ought it to be for me! and, yet—­”

“Yet, what, Lucy?  I believe you loved my sister as affectionately as I did myself, but I am sensitive on this point; and, tender, true, warm as I know your heart to be, I cannot allow that even you loved her more.”

“It is not that, Miles—­it is not that.  Have I no cause of particular regret—­no sense of shame—­no feeling of deep humility to add to my grief for her loss?”

“I understand you, Lucy, and at once answer, no.  You are not Rupert any more than Rupert is you.  Let all others become what they may, you will ever remain Lucy Hardinge.”

“I thank you, Miles,” answered my companion, gently pressing the hand that still retained hers, “and thank you from my heart.  But your generous nature will not sae this matter as others might.  We were aliens to your blood, dwellers under your own roof, received into the bosom of your own family, and were bound by every sacred obligation to do you no wrong.  I would not have my dear, upright father know the truth for worlds.”

“He never will know it, Lucy, and it is my earnest desire that we all forget it.  Henceforth Rupert and I must be strangers, though the tie that exists between me and the rest of your family will only be drawn the closer for this sad event.”

“Rupert is my brother—­” Lucy answered, though it was in a voice so low that her words were barely audible.

“You would not leave me quite alone in the world!” I said, with something like reproachful energy.

“No, Miles, no—­that tie, as you have said, must and should last for life.  Nor do I wish you to regard Rupert as of old.  It is impossible—­improper even—­but you can concede to us some of that same indulgence which I am so willing to concede to you.”