as well as yours, and it is a comfort of which all time can not rob me.  Without it, how could I face my future, so desolate, sombre, lonely?  Edna, the hour has come when, in accordance with your own decree, we part.  For twenty years no woman’s lips, except my mother’s, have touched mine until yesterday, when they pressed yours.  Perhaps we may never meet again in this world, and, ah! do not shrink away from me, I want to kiss you once more, my darling! my darling!  I shall wear it on my lips till death stiffens them; and I am not at all afraid that any other man will ever be allowed to touch lips that belong to me alone; that I have made, and here seal, all my own!  Good-bye.”

He strained her to him and pressed his lips twice to hers, then the carriage stopped at the railroad station.

He handed her out, found a seat for her in the cars, which had just arrived, arranged her wrappings comfortably, and went back to attend to her trunks.  She sat near an open window, and though it rained heavily, he buttoned his coat to the throat, and stood just beneath it, with his eyes bent down.  Twice she pronounced his name, but he did not seem to hear her, and Edna put her hand lightly on his shoulder and said: 

“Do not stand here in the rain.  In a few minutes we shall start, and I prefer that you should not wait.  Please go home at once, Mr. Murray.”

He shook his head, but caught her hand and leaned his cheek against the soft palm, passing it gently and caressingly over his haggard face.

The engine whistled; Mr. Murray pressed a long, warm kiss on the hand he had taken, the cars moved on; and as he lifted his hat, giving her one of his imperial, graceful bows, Edna had a last glimpse of the dark, chiselled, repulsive yet handsome face that had throws its baleful image deep in her young heart, and defied all her efforts to expel it.  The wind howled around the cars, the rain fell heavily, beating a dismal tattoo on the glass, the night was mournfully dreary, and the orphan sank back and lowered her veil, and hid her face in her hands.

Henceforth she felt that in obedience to her own decision, and fiat

  “They stood aloof, the scars remaining
   Like cliffs that had been rent asunder;
   A dreary sea now flows between;
   But neither heat nor frost nor thunder
   Shall wholly do away, I ween,
   The marks of that which once hath been.”

CHAPTER XXIV.

As day dawned the drab clouds blanched, broke up in marbled masses, the rain ceased, the wind sang out of the west, heralding the coming blue and gold, and at noon not one pearly vapor sail dotted the sky.  During the afternoon Edna looked anxiously for the first glimpse of “Lookout,” but a trifling accident detained the train for several hours, and it was almost twilight when she saw it, a purple spot staining the clear beryl horizon; spreading rapidly,