“No!” cried the young man, rushing across the room, snatching the paper from his mother’s hand, and with starting eyes fixed upon the paragraph that she hastily pointed out, seeming to devour the words.

A few days after this Nora Worth sat propped up in an easy-chair by the open window that commanded the view of the Forest Valley and of the opposite hill crowned with the splendid mansion of Brudenell Hall.

But Nora was not looking upon this view; at least except upon a very small part of it—­namely, the little narrow footpath that led down her own hill and was lost in the shade of the valley.  The doctor’s prescriptions had done Nora no good; how should they?  Could he, more than others, “minister to a mind diseased”?  In a word, she had now grown so weak that the spinning was entirely set aside, and she passed her days propped up in the easy-chair beside the window, through which she could watch that little path, which was now indeed so disused, so neglected and grass grown, as to be almost obliterated.

Suddenly, while Nora’s eyes were fixed abstractedly upon this path, she uttered a great cry and started to her feet.

Hannah stopped the clatter of her shuttle to see what was the matter.

Nora was leaning from the window, gazing breathlessly down the path.

“What is it, Nora, my dear?  Don’t lean so far out; you will fall!  What is it?”

“Oh, Hannah, he is coming! he is coming!”

“Who is coming, my darling?  I see no one!” said the elder sister, straining her eyes down the path.

“But I feel him coming!  He is coming fast!  He will be in sight presently!  There! what did I tell you?  There he is!”

And truly at that moment Herman Brudenell advanced from the thicket and walked rapidly up the path towards the hut.

Nora sank back in her seat, overcome, almost fainting.

Another moment and Herman Brudenell was in the room, clasping her form, and sobbing: 

“Nora!  Nora, my beloved! my beautiful! you have been ill and I knew it not! dying, and I knew it not!  Oh! oh! oh!”

“Yes, but I am well, now that you are here!” gasped the girl, as she thrilled and trembled with returning life.  But the moment this confession had been surprised from her she blushed fiery red to the very tips of her ears and hid her face in the pillows of her chair.

“My darling girl!  My own blessed girl! do not turn your face away! look at me with your sweet eyes!  See, I am here at your side, telling you how deep my own sorrow had been at the separation from you, and how much deeper at the thought that you also have suffered!  Look at me!  Smile on me!  Speak to me, beloved!  I am your own!”

These and many other wild, tender, pleading words of love he breathed in the ear of the listening, blushing, happy girl; both quite heedless of the presence of Hannah, who stood petrified with consternation.