that which she lived in her father's study, aiding him with his research into long dead peoples and vanished cities of distant lands. After Jack's departure, her interest in athletics had greatly waned, and the closer bond between herself and her father made study a more sincere delight and the exercise of her intellectual faculties developed a hitherto unknown side of her character. This gave her a knowledge and a seriousness beyond her years. So this Muriel Dean who gazed over the far, far view of sea and sky, with eyes that saw even beyond the misty horizon line, was a very different individual to the impulsive, romantic little Merry who had pledged herself to Jack Morris. She realised now, at twenty-one, that she had learned many things about her own womanhood and concerning the mystery of her own heart that were undreamt of by the irresponsible, sympathetic child of those by-gone days-days that seemed to her now so remote from the present and its problem. The larks had sunk to rest in the grass, the gulls had sought the ledges of the cliffs that gave them shelter; the fishing fleet was skimming homeward with swift brown wings wide spread, and the sunset glory had departed, leaving only a metallic after-glow upon the placid sea, when she at last arose, to turn rather weary steps homeward. A sobbing, moaning wind had risen and swept around the house when at last she had found the seclusion of her room that night. As she lit the wax candles on her desk in the quiet of her little den, a sense of desolation swept over her, deepening as she tried, with many a pause and a few furtive tears, to express on paper the answer her mind had formulated to that frank, burning question that confronted her. Long minutes passed ere the first word appeared on the fair white sheet surmounted by her monogram. Holding the pen unconsciously poised over the paper, she gazed out of the window, watching the black branches of the great fir-tree lashed by the rising wind. Somehow through the wail and whisper of the elements she seemed to hear the words to which she had listened so carelessly at many a brilliant wedding: "Muriel, wilt thou have this Man to be thy wedded husband, to live together, after God's ordinance, in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honour, and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?" Then a gust of rain-drenched wind burst open the latticed window, scattering the sheets of her lover's letter, causing her candle to flicker and gutter dismally, but bringing her to the consciousness that she must dream and dally no longer. She knew she must write fully and frankly the answer which in justice to Jack and to herself would end her heartburnings and indecision. For the best part of the next hour her pen flew over the paper, and before she left the room to join the family circle she had sealed and stamped the letter, which kindly but firmly broke her engagement. She assured her absent lover of her deep affection and loyalty; no other man had crossed her path. She did not break the tie from careless fickleness of feeling, but in reading her own heart she had to confess that she did not care as she should care for the one man who alone could claim the right to call her wife. "It may be, dear," she added, "that when we meet again you yourself may be able to win that place, but you do not hold it to-day, and marriage to me without the realisation of the highest, strongest, and all-satisfying love would be impossible. You now have success, friends, and a bright career before you and you may meet the right woman, even if when we meet again you fail in convincing me that I am she who can make you happy and be supremely happy myself in your love. We were such good comrades, such great friends, that I feel we are just as truly so to-day, but that does not prove that we should be a success as husband and wife. It is your own frank question that has taught me to read my own heart, and I am but fulfilling your request in writing you thus." Many more thoughts and feelings, some clear and frank, some vague and fanciful, filled up the closely written pages. It was with a sigh of relief that Muriel signed and sealed the letter and then locked it safely in her desk to be mailed by her own hand next day. It proved to be a boisterous night. Trees swayed, groaned, and creaked, wind shrieked and moaned around the house and down the chimneys, windows rattled, and rain dripped from the eaves and splashed against the panes. Muriel, in her pretty rose and white room, woke often and listened to the cry of nature distraught, and perhaps her heart too cried a little over shattered hopes and lost illusions. Towards morning the wind sobbed itself to sleep, the rain changed to a gentle drizzle, the trees ceased to writhe and struggle. As Muriel, weary of thought and heartache, sank to sleep, she dreamt herself back in the care-free childhood and somehow was comforted by her |