She had not mentioned his name for years.  I thought she had forgotten all about him.

“Oh, dear sister, is there any need of such a promise?” I asked, weeping.  “Hugh Blair does not want to marry me now.  He never will again.”

“He has never married—­he has not forgotten you,” she said fiercely.  “I could not rest in my grave if I thought you would disgrace your family by marrying beneath you.  Promise me, Margaret.”

I promised.  I would have promised anything in my power to make her dying pillow easier.  Besides, what did it matter?  I was sure that Hugh would never think of me again.

She smiled when she heard me, and pressed my hand.

“Good little sister—­that is right.  You were always a good girl, Margaret—­good and obedient, though a little sentimental and foolish in some ways.  You are like our mother—­she was always weak and loving.  I took after the Merediths.”

She did, indeed.  Even in her coffin her dark, handsome features preserved their expression of pride and determination.  Somehow, that last look of her dead face remained in my memory, blotting out the real affection and gentleness which her living face had almost always shown me.  This distressed me, but I could not help it.  I wished to think of her as kind and loving, but I could remember only the pride and coldness with which she had crushed out my new-born happiness.  Yet I felt no anger or resentment towards her for what she had done.  I knew she had meant it for the best—­my best.  It was only that she was mistaken.

And then, a month after she had died, Hugh Blair came to me and asked me to be his wife.  He said he had always loved me, and could never love any other woman.

All my old love for him reawakened.  I wanted to say yes—­to feel his strong arms about me, and the warmth of his love enfolding and guarding me.  In my weakness I yearned for his strength.

But there was my promise to Hester—­that promise give by her deathbed.  I could not break it, and I told him so.  It was the hardest thing I had ever done.

He did not go away quietly this time.  He pleaded and reasoned and reproached.  Every word of his hurt me like a knife-thrust.  But I could not break my promise to the dead.  If Hester had been living I would have braved her wrath and her estrangement and gone to him.  But she was dead and I could not do it.

Finally he went away in grief and anger.  That was three weeks ago—­and now I sat alone in the moonlit rose-garden and wept for him.  But after a time my tears dried and a very strange feeling came over me.  I felt calm and happy, as if some wonderful love and tenderness were very near me.