In spite of her troubles, as she sat by the fire, looking out through the window, fatigue overcame Mildred, and she nodded. But her brain being troubled, and her attitude uneasy, she awoke suddenly from a sinister dream, and as still unconscious where she was, her eyes opened upon the same melancholy foliage and moonlit sky and the dim enclosure of the yard, the scenery on which they had closed. She saw a pale face staring in upon her through the window. The fingers were tapping gently on the glass.

Old Mildred blinked and shook her head to get rid of what seemed to her a painful illusion.

It was Charles Fairfield who stood at the window, looking wild and miserably ill.

Mildred stood up, and he beckoned. She signed toward the door, which she went forthwith and opened.

“Come in, sir,” she said.

His saddle, by the stirrup-leather, and his bridle were in his hand. Thus he entered the kitchen, and dropped them on the tiled floor. She looked in his face, he looked in hers. There was a silence. It was not Mildred’s business to open the disagreeable subject

“Would you please like anything?”

“No, no supper, thanks. Give me a drink of water, I’m thirsty. I’m tired, and—we’re quite to ourselves?”

“Yes, sir; but wouldn’t ye better have beer?” answered she.

“No—water—thanks.”

And he drank a deep draught.

“Where’s the horse, sir?” she asked after a glance at the saddle which lay on its side on the floor.

“In the field, the poplar field, all right—well!’

“Tom told you my message, sir,” she asked, averting her eyes a little.

“Yes—where is she—asleep?”

“The mistress is in her bed, asleep I do suppose.”

“Yes, yes, and quite well, Tom says. And where is the—the—you sent me word there was some one here. I know whom you mean. Where is she?”

“In the front bedroom—the old room—it will be over the hall-door, you know—she’s in bed, and asleep, I’m thinkin’; but best not make any stir—some folks sleep so light, ye know.”

“It’s late,” he said, taking out his watch, but forgetting to consult it, “and I dare say she is—she came tonight, yes—and she’s tired, or ought to be—a long way.”

He walked to the window, and was looking, with the instinct which leads us always, in dark places, to look toward the light, above the dusky trees to the thin luminous cloud that streaked the sky.

“Pretty well tired myself, Mr. Charles; you may guess the night I’ve put in; I was a’most sleepin’ myself when ye came to the window. Tom said ye wern’t a comin’; ’tis a mercy the yard door wasn’t locked; five minutes more and I’d have locked it.”

“It would not have mattered much, Mildred.”

“Ye’d a climbed, and pushed up the window, mayhap.”

“No; I’d have walked on; a feather would have turned me from the door as it was.”

He turned about and looked at her dreamily.

“On where?” she inquired.

“On, anywhere; on into the glen. If you are tired, Mildred, so am I.”

“You need a good sleep. Master Charles.”

“A long sleep, Mildred. I’m tired. I had a mind as it was to walk on and trouble you here no more.”

“Walk on—hoot! nonsense, Mr. Charles; ’tisn’t come to that; giving up your house to a one like her.”

“I wish I was dead, Mildred. I don’t know whether it was a good or an evil angel that turned me in here. I’d have been easier by this time if I had gone on, and had my leap from the scaur to the bottom of the glen.”

“None o’ that nonsense, man!” said Mildred, sternly; “ye ha’ brought that poor young lady into a doubtful pass, and ye must stand by her, Charles. You’re come of no cowardly stock, and ye shan’t gi’e her up, and your babe that’s comin’, poor little thing to shame and want for lack of a man’s heart under your ribs. I say, I know nout o’ the rights of it; but God will judge ye if ye leave her now.”

High was Mrs. Tarnley’s head, and very grim she looked as with her hand on his shoulder she shook up “Master Charles” from the drowse of death.

“I won’t, old Tarnley,” he said at last. “You’re right—poor little Alice, the loving little thing!”

He turned suddenly again to the window and wept in silence strange tears of agony.

Old Tarnley looked at him sternly askance. I don’t think she had much pity for him; she was in nowise given to the melting mood, and hardly knew what that sort of whimpering meant.

“I say,” she broke out, “I don’t know the rights of it, how should I? but this I believe, if you thought you were truly married to that woman that’s come tonight, you’d never a found it in your heart to act such a villain’s part by the poor, young, foolish creature up stairs, and make a sham wife o’ her.”

“Never, never, by heaven. I’m no more that wretched woman’s husband than I’m married to you.”

“Mildred knew better than marry anyone; there’s little I see but tears and wrinkles, and oftentimes rags and hunger comes of it; but ’twill be done, marryin’ and givin’ in marriage, says the Scriptures, ’tis so now, ’twas so when Noah went into the ark, and ’twill be so when the day of judgment breaks over us.”

“Yes,” said Charles Fairfield, abstractedly; “of course that miserable woman sticks at no assertion; her idea is simply to bully her way to her object. It doesn’t matter what she says, and it never surprised me. I always knew if she lived she’d give me trouble one day; but that’s all; just trouble, but no more; not the slightest chance of succeeding—not the smallest; she knows it; I know it. The only thing that vexes me is that people who know all about it as well as I do, and people who, of all others, should feel for me, and feel with me, should talk as if they had doubts upon the subject now.”

“I didn’t say so. Master Charles,” said Mildred.

“I didn’t mean you, I meant others, quite a different person; I’m utterly miserable; at a more unlucky moment all this could not have happened by any possibility.”

“Well, I’m sure I never said it; I never thought but one thing of her; the foul-tongued wicked beast.”

“Don’t you talk that way of her,” said Charles, savagely. “Whatever she is she has suffered, she has been cruelly used, and I am to blame for all. I did not mean it, but it is all my fault.”

Mrs. Tarnley sneered, but said nothing, and a silence followed.

“I know,” he said, in a changed way, “you mean kindly to me.”

“Be kind to yourself. I hold it’s the best way in this bleak world, Mr. Charles. I never was thanked for kindness yet.”

“You have always been true to me, Mildred, in your own way—in your own way, mind, but always true, and I’ll show you yet, if I’m spared, that I can be grateful. You know how I am now—no power to serve anyone—no power to show my regard.”

“I don’t complain o’ nothing,” said Mildred.

“Has my brother been here, Mildred,” he asked.

“Not he.”

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