“He was well at last accounts, but the document was long enough and complicated enough to make him very ill.  I hope he’ll die of it to-morrow.”

“Perhaps he’s going to study law, too,” remarked Barbara, “and believes, with Macaulay, that ’a page digested is better than a book hurriedly read.’”

“I think that will do, Miss North.  I’ll read to you now, if you don’t mind.  I would fain improve myself instead of listening to such childish chatter.”

“Perhaps, if you read to me enough, I’ll improve so that even you will enjoy talking to me,” she returned, with a mischievous smile.  “What did you bring over?”

[Sidenote:  A New Book]

“A new book—­that is, one that we’ve never seen before.  There is a large box of father’s books behind some trunks in the attic, and I never found them until Sunday, when I was rummaging around up there.  I haven’t read them—­I thought I’d make a list of them first, and you can choose those you’d like to have me read to you.  I brought this little one because I was sure you’d like it, after reading Endymion and The Eve of St. Agnes.”

“What is it?”

“Keats’s letters to Fanny Brawne.”

The little brown book was old and its corners were dog-eared, but the yellowed pages, with their record of a deathless passion, were still warmly human and alive.  Roger had a deep, pleasant voice, and he read well.  Quite apart from the beauty of the letters, it gave Barbara pleasure to sit in the firelight and watch his face.

[Sidenote:  A Folded Paper]

He read steadily, pausing now and then for comment, until he was half-way through the volume; then, as he turned a page, a folded paper fell out.  He picked it up curiously.

“Why, Barbara,” he said, in astonishment.  “It’s my father’s writing.”

“What is it—­notes?”

“No, he seems to have been trying to write a letter like those in the book.  It is all in pencil, with changes and erasures here and there.  Listen: 

[Sidenote:  The Letter]

“’You are right, as you always are, and we must never see each other again.  We must live near each other for the rest of our lives, with that consciousness between us.  We must pass each other on the street and not speak unless others are with us; then we must bow, pleasantly, for the sake of appearances.

“’I hope you do not blame me because I went mad.  I ask your pardon, and yet I cannot say I am sorry.  That one hour of confession is worth a lifetime of waiting—­it is worth all the husks that we are to have henceforward while we starve for more.

“’Through all the years to come, we shall be separated by less than a mile, yet the world lies between us and divides us as by a glittering sword.  You will not be unfaithful to your pledge, nor I to mine.  Nothing is changed there.  It is only that two people chose to live in the