“So do I,” murmured Evelina, grateful for the chiffon that hid her tears.

“Wasn’t there ever anybody?”

“Yes.”

“I knew it—­you’re so sweet nobody could help loving you.  Did he die?”

“Yes.”

“It was that way with Mr. Thorpe,” mused Araminta, reminiscently.  “They loved each other and were going to be married, but she died.  He said, though, that death didn’t make any difference with loving.  There’s Ralph, now.”

“Little witch,” said the boy, fondly, as she met him at the door; “did you think I could wait a whole five minutes?”

They sat in the parlour for half an hour or more, and during this time it was not necessary for their hostess to say a single word.  They were quite unaware that they were not properly conducting a three-sided conversation, and Miss Evelina made no effort to enlighten them.  Youth and laughter and love had not been in her house before for a quarter of a century.

“Come again,” she begged, when they started home.  Joy incarnate was a welcome guest—­it did not mock her now.

Half-way down the path, Ralph turned back to the veiled woman who stood wistfully in the doorway.  Araminta was swinging, in childish fashion, upon the gate.  Ralph took Miss Evelina’s hand in his.

“I wish I could say all I feel,” he began, awkwardly, “but I can’t.  With all my heart, I wish I could give some of my happiness to you!”

“I am content—­since I have forgiven.”

“If you had not, I could never have been happy again, and even now, I still feel the shame of it.  Are you going to wear that—­veil—­always?”

“No,” she whispered, shrinking back into the shelter of it, “but I am waiting for a sign.”

“May it soon come,” said Ralph, earnestly.

“I am used to waiting.  My life has been made up of waiting.  God bless you,” she concluded, impulsively.

“And you,” he answered, touching his lips to her hand.  He started away, but she held him back.  “Ralph,” she said, passionately, “be true to her, be good to her, and never let her doubt you.  Teach her to trust you, and make yourself worthy of her trust.  Never break a promise made to her, though it cost you everything else you have in the world.  I am old, and I know that, at the end, nothing counts for an instant beside the love of two.  Remember that keeping faith with her is keeping faith with God!”

“I will,” returned Ralph, his voice low and uneven.  “It is what my own mother would have said to me had she been alive to-day.  I thank you.”

The house was very lonely after they had gone, though the echoes of love and laughter seemed to have come back to a place where they once held full sway.  The afternoon wore to its longest shadows and the dense shade of the cypress was thrown upon the garden.  Evelina smiled to herself, for it was only a shadow.