ill. Thereupon she went away, sighing, with a very long face, saying to

herself:

“If I had told that horrid old man he would not have believed me, but last night I heard spirit voices sobbing in the pine tree outside my window, and whenever I hear that, it’s a sure sign of trouble.”

While she went slowly out of the gate Miss Tuttle was watching her from the window, and she said to the pale girl sitting back among the pillows:

“There goes Mrs. Gray. I suppose she has been to inquire about you.”

Leola’s wistful eyes looked at her with a mute question, and she answered, gently:

“You’re thinking of Mr. Chester Olyphant, I know, dearie, and I had better tell you and get it off your mind. He has gone away.”

“Gone away!” Leola repeated, trembling, her lips white, her eyes somber with misery.

“Yes, gone away, and a good riddance, I say, for how could he face you again after all that has happened? He has nearly broken Miss Stirling’s heart as well as yours, and she vows she will never speak to him again for your sake! Only think of the great monster, engaged to her, and coming off down here to make love to you, because you were so pretty and so innocent. There was not a word he could say in his own defence, nothing but to sneak away like a hound beaten for stealing! Yes, he is gone, and I hope that is the last of him!”

Leola’s white, trembling hands hid her face, but presently she spoke wearily through her fingers:

“I have just one favor to ask you, dear Miss Tuttle. Never mention his name to me again, so that I may find it easier to forget.”

Alas, would she find oblivion of pain so easily?

“When vain desire at last and vain regret Go hand in hand to death, and all is vain, What shall assuage the unforgotten pain And teach the unforgetful to forget?”

To her own heart the unhappy girl was saying:

“Oh, why did I not die when I found that he was false, and my dream of love over? Why linger on when the charm is gone from life, and I must live on, shamed, humiliated, by the thought that Jessie Stirling’s proud, rich lover stooped from the height where he should dwell to pluck a wayside flower, then trample it beneath his feet? Oh, it is torture to think he held me so lightly!”