to go back to him at once, to begin over again at once, this very minute to begin over again—­overflows and floods my whole being.  Late in the day as it is—­doubly unseemly and ungracious as the confession will seem now—­I will tell him of that lie with which I first sullied the cleanness of our union.  With my face hidden on his broad breast, so that I may not see his eyes, I will tell him—­yes, I will tell him.  “I will arise, and go to him, and say, ‘I have sinned against Heaven and before thee.’”

So I go.  I am nearing Tempest:  as I reach the churchyard gate, I stop the carriage, and get out.

Barbara was always the one that, after any absence from home, I used first to run in search of.  I will go and seek her now.

It is drawing toward dusk as I pass, in my long black gown, up the church-path, between the still and low-lying dead, to the quiet spot where, with the tree-boughs waving over her, with the ivy hanging the loose luxuriance of its garlands on the church-yard wall above her head, our Barbara is taking her rest.

As I near the grave, I see that I am not its only visitor.  Some one, a man, is already there, leaning pensively on the railings that surround it, with his eyes fixed on the dark and winterly earth, and on the newly-planted, flagging flowers.  It is Roger.  As he hears my approaching steps, the swish of my draperies, he turns; and, by the serene and lifted gravity of his eyes, I see that he has been away in heaven with Barbara.  He does not speak as I come near; only he opens his arms joyfully, and yet a little diffidently, too, and I fly to then.

“Roger!” I cry, passionately, with a greedy yearning for human love here—­at this very spot, where so much of the love of my life lies in death’s austere silence at my feet—­“love me a little—­ever so little!  I know I am not very lovable, but you once liked me, did not you?—­not nearly so much as I thought, I know, but still a little!”

“A little!”

“I am going to begin all over again!” I go on, eagerly, speaking very quickly, with my arms clasped about his neck, “quite all over again; indeed I am!  I shall be so different that you will not know me for the same person, and if—­if—­” (beginning to falter and stumble)—­“if you still go on liking her best, and thinking her prettier and pleasanter to talk to—­well, you cannot help it, it will not be your fault—­and I—­ I—­will try not to mind!”

He has taken my hands from about his neck, and is holding them warmly, steadfastly clasped in his own.

“Child! child!” he cries, “shall I never undeceive you? are you still harping on that old worn-out string?”

“Is it worn out?” I ask, anxiously, staring up with my wet eyes through the deep twilight into his.  “Yes, yes!” (going on quickly and impulsively), “if you say so, I will believe it—­without another word I will believe it, but—­” (with a sudden fall from my high tone, and lapse into curiosity)—­“you know you must have liked her a good deal once—­you know you were engaged to her.”