me, if any thing resulted from my inquiries, to write to him to the care of our Melbourne house.  But no news ever came, and I never wrote to him, for which my wife still blames me exceedingly.  She thanks you, dear madam, for the kind things you say about our poor child, though meant for another person.  We have seven boys, but little Bell was our youngest, and our hearts’ delight.  She died after six hours’ illness.

“Again begging you to pardon my unconscious offense in reading a stranger’s letter, and the length of this one, I remain your very obedient servant, R. Roy

“P.S.—­I ought to say that this Mr. Robert Roy seemed between thirty-five and forty, tall, dark-haired, walked with a slight stoop.  He had, I believe, no near relatives whatever, and I never heard of his having been married.”

Unquestionably Miss Williams did well in retiring to her chamber and locking the door before she opened the letter.  It is a mistake to suppose that at thirty-five or forty—­or what age?—­women cease to feel.  I once was walking with an old maiden lady, talking of a character in a book.  “He reminded me,” she said, “of the very best man I ever knew, whom I saw a good deal of when I was a girl.”  And to the natural question, was he alive, she answered, “No; he died while he was still young.”  Her voice kept its ordinary tone, but there came a slight flush on the cheek, a sudden quiver over the whole withered face—­she was some years past seventy—­and I felt I could not say another word.

Nor shall I say a word now of Fortune Williams, when she had read through and wholly taken in the contents of this letter.

Life began for her again—­life on a new and yet on the old basis; for it was still waiting, waiting—­she seemed to be among those whose lot it is to “stand and wait” all their days.  But it was not now in the absolute darkness and silence which it used to be.  She knew that in all human probability Robert Roy was alive still some where, and hope never could wholly die out of the world so long as he was in it.  His career, too, if not prosperous in worldly things, had been one to make any heart that loved him content—­content and proud.  For if he had failed in his fortunes, was it not from doing what she would most have wished him to do—­the right, at all costs?  Nor had he quite forgotten her, since even so late as five years back he had been making inquiries about her.  Also, he was then unmarried.

But human nature is weak, and human hearts are so hungry sometimes.

“Oh, if he had only loved me, and told me so!” she said, sometimes, as piteously as fifteen years ago.  But the tears which followed were not, as then, a storm of passionate despair—­only a quiet sorrowful rain.

For what could she do?  Nothing.  Now as ever, her part seemed just to fold her hands and endure.  If alive, he might be found some day; but now she could not find him—­oh, if she could!  Had she been the man and he the woman—­nay, had she been still herself, a poor lonely governess, having to earn every crumb of her own bitter bread, yet knowing that he loved her, might not things have been different?  Had she belonged to him, they would never have lost one another.  She would have sought him, as Evangeline sought Gabriel, half the world over.