Forgotten her voice! Indeed, he had not forgotten her voice, as his

bitterness showed. But though in the heat of the moment he had

reproached her keenly, his second mood was a far more tender one--that

which could regard her renunciation of such as he as her glory and her

privilege, his own fidelity notwithstanding. He could have declared

with a contemporary poet-"If I forget,

The salt creek may forget the ocean;

If I forget

The heart whence flows my heart's bright motion,

May I sink meanlier than the worst

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Abandoned, outcast, crushed, accurst,

If I forget.

"Though you forget,

No word of mine shall mar your pleasure;

Though you forget,

You filled my barren life with treasure,

You may withdraw the gift you gave;

You still are queen, I still am slave,

Though you forget."

She had tears in her eyes at the thought that she could not remind him

of what he ought to have remembered; that not herself but the pressure

of events had dissipated the dreams of their early youth. Grace was

thus unexpectedly worsted in her encounter with her old friend. She

had opened the window with a faint sense of triumph, but he had turned

it into sadness; she did not quite comprehend the reason why. In truth

it was because she was not cruel enough in her cruelty. If you have to

use the knife, use it, say the great surgeons; and for her own peace

Grace should have contemned Winterborne thoroughly or not at all. As

it was, on closing the window an indescribable, some might have said

dangerous, pity quavered in her bosom for him.

Presently her husband entered the room, and told her what a wonderful

sunset there was to be seen.

"I have not noticed it. But I have seen somebody out there that we

know," she replied, looking into the court.

Fitzpiers followed the direction of her eyes, and said he did not

recognize anybody.

"Why, Mr. Winterborne--there he is, cider-making. He combines that

with his other business, you know."

"Oh--that fellow," said Fitzpiers, his curiosity becoming extinct.

She, reproachfully: "What, call Mr. Winterborne a fellow, Edgar? It is

true I was just saying to myself that I never could have married him;

but I have much regard for him, and always shall."

"Well, do by all means, my dear one. I dare say I am inhuman, and

supercilious, and contemptibly proud of my poor old ramshackle family;

but I do honestly confess to you that I feel as if I belonged to a

different species from the people who are working in that yard."




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