loved best.  How would it be when he should be back again in his native land?  He had fought his battle; duty had told him to go there; and when she had sounded the call, there could be no retreat for him.  But love and longing and memory and fear all harassed him.  He had as yet said nothing of this to his sister, but it weighed on him continually.  Taken all in all, Robert Sumner’s life, which had been keyed to so even a pitch, and to which all discord had been a stranger for so many years, was sadly jarred and out of tune.

Of course Mrs. Douglas’s keen sisterly eyes could not be blind to the fact that something was troubling her brother.  And it was such an unusual thing to see signs of so prolonged disturbance in him that she became anxious to know the cause.  Still she could not speak of it first.  Intimate as they were, the inner feelings of each were very sacred to the other, and she must wait until he should choose to reveal all to her.

She well knew that his heart had been wholly consecrated to the only love it had heretofore known, and the query had often arisen in her mind whether the approach of another affection might not in the first place work some unhappiness.  That he could ever love again as he had loved Margaret she did not for a moment believe.  She well knew, however, that the happiness of any woman who might give her life into her brother’s keeping was safe, and her wish for him was that he might be so drawn toward some loving woman that he might desire to make her his wife, and so be blessed with family life and love; for the thought that he might live lonely, without family ties, was inexpressibly sad to her loving heart.

We have seen how the coming of Miss Sherman into their lives roused these hopes afresh; and she now wondered if his evident unrest might be caused by the first suggestion of the thought of asking her to become his wife.  It was evident that he admired her and enjoyed her society; and, so far as Miss Sherman’s feelings were concerned, she felt no doubt.  Indeed, she sometimes shrank a bit from the free display of her fondness for his company, and hoped that Malcom and the girls might not notice it.  She easily excused it, however, to herself, although the closer intimacy of daily intercourse was revealing, little by little, flaws in the character she had thought so fair.

How utterly mistaken was Mrs. Douglas! and how shocked would Lucile Sherman have been this very morning could she have known how strong a longing leaped into Robert Sumner’s heart to take into his hungry arms that graceful figure in worn brown suit, with brave, smiling young face and steadfast eyes, put her into his carriage, and drive away,—­anywhere,—­so it only were away and away!

Or, how stern a grip he imposed on himself as he took his seat beside her dimpling, chattering self, radiant with fresh colors and graceful draperies.

Or, of the tumult of his thoughts as they drove along through the narrow streets, across the yellow Tiber and up to the stately entrance of St. Peter’s.