ill. She was still unconscious, and they had sent for the doctor, who

arrived only to tell them she was dead.

Launa did not know her father’s address. Miss Black’s relations were merely cousins, to whom her death and funeral were matters of indifference.

So Launa stayed alone with the dead woman weeping tears of sorrow—some tears were for the loss of companionship, some for the love and never ceasing care. The idea of a funeral was terrible to her; death meant earth and creepy things. At last Mr. Archer got his telegram, and came home.

Launa felt as if the end had come to her. Death, the intruder, had entered into her life; he was a powerful enemy, and hitherto she had only regarded him as a sleeping brother.

Mr. Archer’s grief was not perfunctory, he grieved honestly and really. Miss Black was his friend—if any longing for a nearer and perhaps dearer connection (the dearness thereof is wont to depart when the nearness is an accomplished fact) had ever crossed his mind, it had crossed only and never taken root. The constancy of man is more frequently attributable to circumstances than to everlasting love.

Mr. Archer observed that Launa had grown different—older, more absorbed in something, more sympathetic. Always a child of deep emotions, she had developed into a woman. But because her heart was not navigable to floundering old women, the world near “Solitude” called her cold, unfeeling, and indifferent.

Her father regretted this alteration. She had been a child, but apparently death had stepped in and changed her.

He studied her gravely and with attention. “Solitude” was dreary. Launa’s admirers grew weary of vain visits, of fruitless attempts to see her, and they ceased to come. They said she was in love with an unknown man; they had to account for her refusal to see them, and pique and vanity suggested this solution.

After a long, cold winter, spring was beginning. All life was breaking out again. The world was glad, triumphant, new, and Mr. George Archer’s mind turned to England. Launa must go there for change of scene and air, so they left Canada on the first of May.

Launa and Paul had never met since the memorable day he had shot the horse. Mr. Archer casually mentioned that Paul was in Montreal. Launa had a burning desire to hear tidings of him, but she repressed it; she pushed it back, back, back in her mind, far away into those cupboards everyone has, and keeps locked and sealed always, by sheer force of will.