“It was a month before either of us went to the house.  The old captain thought at first that we were going to the dogs, and, I think, kept up a kind of watch over our movements.  He came in one morning, after he had concluded his suspicions were wrong, and made a sort of expiatory call.  He tried to tell us how he had judged us too harshly, but couldn’t quite bring himself to it, and, after a good many half-uttered remarks that did honor to the old gentleman’s heart, if they didn’t prove him a cool hand in such matters, he left us with an unspoken blessing and some homely, sound advice to do as we liked, so long as we were manly and honest.

“Within a week he was stricken with apoplexy on receiving news of some serious losses, and was taken home without speaking.  He died the next morning just at sunrise, and Grace and Phil mingled their tears at his bedside.  He tried in vain to speak to them, and the pleased light in his eyes as they took each other’s hands and laid them, joined together, in his, was the only sign he gave of having known there had been a difference between them.

“Poor Grace! she was very miserable and lonely after that.  Phil could never bear to be with her after he had spoken.  Her true kindness and gentle, loving pity were misery to him.  He made a noble effort to stay by and watch over her, but he was hardly fit to take care of himself.  She never knew how small a share of what little was left of his father’s money he took with him to the mountains, but she realized why he went without waiting for his degree, and sadly approved his resolution.  She always kept the growing attachment between her and Herbert from grating on Phil as much as was in her power, but he could not help seeing it.  Though he never said anything even to me, it was plain that he had a poor opinion of the young journalist; and Grace was very thankful to him for all he did and suffered.

“She must have felt very much alone in the world after Phil left, and the house certainly seemed empty and sad when I used to go there to see her.  There was no one but Grace and the housekeeper and an old gentleman, a clerk in one of the State departments, to whom she had rented rooms, partly for the money and partly to have a man in the house.  Herbert was with her whenever his work would permit, and there was some talk about their intimacy among people who, even if they had known her, were too base to have appreciated the fineness and truth and purity of Grace’s nature.

“I couldn’t blame her for marrying Herbert,—­which she did the fall after I graduated.  They certainly were very much in love, and Herbert had borne himself creditably in every way.  No one could have foreseen that he would turn out so badly; and for a year or more after their marriage they were as happy as birds in May.  Grace was never light-hearted, as when I first knew her,—­no woman of worth and tenderness would have been,—­but still she was happily and sweetly contented, completely bound up in her husband, thinking almost of nothing but him, and caring for nothing but his love.