When Drayton went out, Hugh Ritson walked into the bar. The gossips had gone. Only the landlady was there. The door to the room opposite now stood open.

"Mrs. Drayton," said Hugh, "have you ever seen this face before?"

He took a medallion from his pocket and held it out to her.

"Lor's a mercy me!" cried the landlady; "why, it's her herself as plain as plain—except for the nun's bonnet."

"Is that the lady who lodged with you at Pimlico—the mother of Paul?"

"As sure as sure! Lor's, yes; and to think the poor young dear is dead and gone! It's thirty years since, but it do make me cry, and my husband—he's gone, too—my husband he said to me, 'Martha,' he said, 'Martha—'"

The landlady's garrulity was interrupted by a light scream: "Hugh, Hugh!"

Mercy Fisher stood in the door-way, with wonder-stricken eyes and heaving breast.

In an instant the poor little soul had rushed into Hugh Ritson's arms with the flutter of a frightened bird.

"Oh, I knew you would come—I was sure you would come!" she said, and dried her eyes, and then cried again, and then dried them afresh, and lifted her pouting lips to be kissed.

Hugh Ritson made no display. A shade of impatience crossed his face at first, but it was soon gone. He tried to look pleased, and bent his head and touched the pale lips slightly.

"You look wan, you poor little thing," he said, quietly. "What ails you?"

"Nothing—nothing, now that you have come. Only you were so long in coming, so very long."

He called up a brave word to answer her.

"But you see I keep my word, little woman," he said, and smiled down at her and nodded his head cheerfully.

"And you have come to see me at last! All this way to see poor little me!"

The mute weariness that had marked her face fled at that moment before a radiant smile.

"One must do something for those who risk so much for one," he said, and laughed a little.

"Ah!"

The first surprise over, the joy of that moment was beyond the gift of speech. Her arms encircled his neck, and she looked up at his face in silence and with brightening eyes.

"And so you found the time long and tedious?" he said.

"I had no one to talk to," she said, with a blank expression.

"Why, you ungrateful little thing! you had good Mrs. Drayton here, and her son, and all the smart young fellows of Hendon who came to drink at the bar and say pretty things to the little bar-maid, and—"

"It's not that—I had no one who knew you," she said, and dropped her voice to a whisper.

"But you go out sometimes—into the village—to London?" he said.

"No, I never go out—never now."

"Then your eyes are really worse?"

"It's not my eyes. But, never mind. Oh, I knew you would not forget me. Only sometimes of an evening, when the dusk fell in, and I sat by the fire all alone, something would say, 'He doesn't want me,' 'He won't come for me.' But that was not true, was it?"

"Why, no; of course not."

"And then when the children came—the neighbor's children,—and I put the little darlings to bed, and they said their prayers to me, and I tried to pray, too—sometimes I was afraid to pray—and then, and then," (she glanced round watchfully and dropped her voice) "something would say, 'Why didn't he leave me alone? I was so happy!'"

"You morbid little woman! You shall be happy again—you are happy now, are you not?" he said.

Her eyes, bleared and red, but bright with the shafts of love, looked up at him in the dumb joy that is perfect happiness.

"Ah!" she said, and dropped her comely head on his breast.

"But you should have taken walks—long, healthy, happy walks," he said.

"I did—while the roses bloomed and the dahlias and things, and I saved so many of them against you would come, moss roses and wild white roses; but you were so long coming and they withered. And then I couldn't throw them away, because, you know, they were yours; so I pressed them in the book you gave me. See, let me show you."

She stepped aside eagerly to pick up a little gilt-edged book from the table in the inner room. He followed her mechanically, hardly heeding her happy prattle.

"And was there no young fellow in all Hendon to make those lonely walks of yours more cheerful?"

She was opening her book with nervous fingers, and stopped to look up with blank eyes.

"Eh? No handsome young fellow who whispered that you were a pretty little thing, and had no right to go moping about by yourself? None? Eh?"

Her old look of weariness was creeping back.

"Come, Mercy, tell the truth, you sly little thing—eh?"

She was fumbling his withered roses with nervous fingers. Her throat felt parched.

He looked down at her saddening face, and then muttered, as if speaking to himself: "I told that Bonnithorne this hole and corner was no place for the girl. He should have taken her to London."

The girl's heart grew sick. The book was closed and dropped back on to the table.

"And now, Mercy," said Hugh Ritson, "I want you to be a good little woman, and do as I bid you, and not speak a word. Will you?"

The child-face brightened, and Mercy nodded her head, a little tear rolling out of one gleaming eye. At the same moment she put her hand in the pocket of her muslin apron, and took out a pair of knitted mittens, and tried to draw them on to Hugh's wrists.

He looked at the gift, and smiled, and said: "I won't need these—not to-day, I mean. See, I wear long gloves, with fur wristbands—there, I'll store your mittens away in my pocket. What a sad little soul—crying again?"

Mercy's pretty dreams were dying one by one. She lifted now a timid hand until it rested lightly on his breast.

"Listen. I'm going out, but I'll soon be back. I must talk with Mrs. Drayton, and I've something to pay her, you know."

The timid hand fell to the girl's side.

"When I return there may be some friends with me—a lady and a gentleman—but I want to see them alone, quite alone, and I don't want them to see you—do you understand?"

A great dumb sadness was closing in on Mercy's heart.

"But they will soon be gone, and then to-morrow you and I must talk again, and try to arrange matters so that you won't be quite so lonely, but will stir about, and see the doctor for your eyes, and get well again, and try to forget—"

"Forget!" said the girl, faintly. Her parched throat took away her voice.

"I mean—that is to say—I was hoping—of course, I mean forget all the trouble in Cumberland. And now get away to bed like a good little girl. I must be off. Ah, how late!—see, a quarter to eleven, and my watch is slow."

He walked into the bar, buttoning up his coat to his ears. The girl followed him listlessly. Mrs. Drayton was washing glasses behind the counter.

"Mind you send this little friend of mine to bed very soon," said Hugh to the landlady. "Look how red her eyes are! And keep a good fire in this cozy parlor on the left—you are to have visitors—you need not trouble about a bedroom—they won't stay long. Let me see, what do they say is the time of your last up-train?"

"To London? The last one starts away at half past twelve," said the landlady.

"Very good. I'll see you again, Mrs. Drayton. Good-night, Mercy, and do keep a brighter face. There—kiss me. Now, good-night—what a silly, affectionate little goose—and mind you are in bed and asleep before I return, or I shall be that angry—yes, I shall. You never saw me angry. Well, never mind. Good-night."

The door opened and closed. Mercy went back into the room. It was cheerless and empty, and the children's happy voices lived in it no more. The girl's heart ached with a dull pain that had never a pang at all, but was dumb and dead and cold; and Mercy was all alone.

"Perhaps he was only in fun when he said that about walking out with somebody and trying to forget, and not being seen," she thought. "Yes; he must have been only in fun," she thought, "because he knew how I waited and waited."

Then she took up again the book that he had hardly glanced at. It fell open at a yellow, dried-up rose that had left the stain of its heart's juice on the white leaf.

"Yes, he was only in fun," she said, and then laughed a little; and then a big drop fell on to the open page and on to the dead flower.

Then she tried to be very brave.

"I must not cry; it makes my eyes, oh! so sore. I must get them well and strong—oh, yes! I must be well and strong against—against—then."

She lifted her head slowly where she stood alone, and a smile, like a summer breeze on still water, rippled over her mouth.

"He kissed me," she thought, "and he came to see me—all this long, long way."

A lovely dream shone in her face now.

"And if he does not come again until—until then—he will be glad—oh, he will be very glad!"

The thought of a future hour when the poor little soul should be rich with something of her own that would be dearest of all because not all her own, shone like a sleeping child's vision in her face. She went out into the bar and lighted a candle.

"So that's your sweetheart—not the lawyer man, eh?" said Mrs. Drayton, bustling about.

"I've no call to hide my face now—not now that he has come—have I?" said Mercy.

"Well, he is free of his money, and I'se just been hoping you get some of it, for, as I says, you want things bad, and them as has the looking to it should find 'em, as is only reasonable."

Mercy did as she had been bidden: she went off to her bedroom. But her head was too full of thoughts for sleep. She examined her face in the glass, and smiled and blushed at it because he called it pretty. It was prettier than ever to her own eyes now. After half an hour she remembered that she had left the book on the table in the parlor, and crept down-stairs to recover it. When she was on the landing at the bottom, she heard a hurried knock at the outer door.

Thereafter all her dreams died in an instant.