Coming home!—coming home! In different ears how differently sound the words! They who in all their wanderings have still the little, well-filled, love-expectant nest whereto they may wing their way, should think sometimes of the many there are to whom the whole wide world is all alike; whose sole rest must be in themselves; who never can truly say, “I am going home,” until they say it with eyes turned longingly towards a Home unseen.

Something of this mournfulness felt Olive Rothesay. It was dreary enough to reach her journey's end alone, and have to wait some hours at the small railway station; and then, tired and worn, to be driven for miles across the country through the gloomiest of all gloomy November days. Still, the dreariness passed, when she saw, shining from afar, the light from the windows of Farnwood Dell. As the chaise stopped, out came running old Hannah, the maid, with little Ailie too; while awaiting her in the parlour, were Christal and Mrs. Gwynne. No one else! Olive saw that in one moment, and blamed herself for having wished—what she had no right to hope—what had best not be.

Mrs. Gwynne embraced her warmly—Christal with dignified grace. The young lady looked gay and pleased, and there was a subdued light in her black eyes which almost softened them into sweetness. The quick restless manner in which she had indulged at times since she came to Farnwood seemed melting into a becoming womanliness, Altogether, Christal was improved.

“Well, now, I suppose you will be wanting to hear the news of all your friends,” said Miss Manners, with smiles bubbling round her pretty mouth. “We are not all quite the same as you left us. To begin with—let me see—Mr. Harold Gwynne”——

“Of that, Miss Christal, I will beg you not to speak. It is a painful subject to me,” observed Mrs. Gwynne, with a vexed air. “You need not look at me so earnestly, dear, kind Olive! All is well with me and with my son; but he has done what I think is not exactly good for him, and it somewhat troubles me. However, we will talk of this another time.”

“More news do you want, Olive?” (Christal now sometimes called her so.) “Well, then, Dame Fortune is in the giving mood. She has given your favourite Mr. Lyle Derwent a fortune of £1000 a year, and a little estate to match!”

“I am so glad! for his sake, good dear Lyle!”

“Dear Lyle!” repeated Christal, turning round with a sparkle either of pleasure or anger in her glittering eyes; but it was quenched before it reached those of Olive. “Well, winning is one thing, deserving is another!” she continued, merrily. “I could have picked out a dozen worthy, excellent young men, who would have better merited the blessing of a rich uncle, ay, and made a better use of his money too.”

“Lyle would thank you if he knew.”

“That he ought, and that he does, and that he shall do, every day of his life!” cried Christal, lifting up her tall figure with a sudden haughtiness, not the less real because she laughed the while; then with one light bound she vanished from the room.

Olive, left alone with Mrs. Gwynne, would fain have taken her hands, and said as she had oft done before. “Friend, tell me all that troubles you—all that concerns you and him.” But now a faint fear repelled her. However, Harold's mother, understanding her looks, observed,

“You are anxious, my dear. Never was there such a faithful friend to me and to my son! I wish you had been here a week ago, and then you might have helped me to persuade him not to go away.”

“He is gone, then, to America?”

“America!—who mentioned America?” said Mrs. Gwynne, sharply. “Has he told you more than he told me?”

Olive, sorely repentant, tried to soothe the natural jealousy she had aroused. “You know well Mr. Gwynne would be sure to tell his plans to his mother; only I have heard him talk of liking America—of wishing to go thither.”

“He has not gone then. He has started with his friend Lord Arundale, to travel all through Europe. It is a pity, I think, for one of his cloth, and it shows a wandering and restless mind. I know not what has come over my dear Harold.”

“Was it a sudden journey?—is it long since he went?” said Olive, shading her eyes from the fire-light.

“Only yesterday. I told him you were coming to-day; and he desired me to say how grieved he was that he thus missed you, but it was unavoidable. He had kept Lord Arundale waiting already, and it would not be courteous to delay another day. You will not mind?”

“Oh no! oh no!” The hand was pressed down closer over the eyes.

Mrs. Gwynne pursued. “Though I have all confidence in my son, yet I own this sudden scheme has troubled me. His health is better;—why could he not stay at Harbury?”

Olive, wishing to discover if she knew anything of her son's sad secret, observed, “It is a monotonous life that Mr. Gwynne leads here—one hardly suited for him.”

“Ah, I know,” said the mother, sighing. “His heart is little in his calling. I feared so, long ago. But it is not that which drives him abroad; for I told him if he still wished to resign his duties to his curate, we would give up the Parsonage, and he should take pupils. There is a charming little house in the neighbouring village that would suit us. But no; he seemed to shrink from this plan too. He said he must go entirely away from Harbury.”

“And for how long?”

“I cannot tell—he did not say. I should think, not above a year—his mother may not have many more years to spend with him;” and there was a little trembling of Mrs. Gwynne's mouth; but she continued with dignity: “Do not imagine, Olive, that I mean to blame my son. He has done what he thought right. Against my wish, or my happiness, he would not have done it at all. So I did not let him see any little pain it might have given me. 'Twas best not. Now we will let the subject rest.”

But, though they spoke no more, Olive speculated vainly on what had induced Harold to take this precipitate journey. She thought she had known him so thoroughly—better than any one else could. But in him lay mysteries beyond her ken. She could only still rest on that which had comforted her in all she suffered;—an entire faith in him and in his goodness.

Mrs. Gwynne sat an hour or two, and then rose to return to the Parsonage. “We must be home before it is dark, little Ailie and I. We have no one to take care of us now.”

Some pain was visible as she said this. When she took her grandchild by the hand, and walked down the garden, it seemed to Olive that the old lady's step was less firm than usual. Her heart sprang to Harold's mother.

“Let me walk with you a little way, Mrs. Gwynne. I am thoroughly rested now; and as for coming back alone, I shall not mind it.”

“What a little trembling arm it is for me to lean on!” said Mrs. Gwynne, smiling, when, after some faint resistance, she had taken Olive for a companion. “'Tis nothing like my Harold's, and yet I am glad to have it. I am afraid I shall often have to look to it now Harold is away. Are you willing, Olive?”

“Quite, quite willing;—nay, very glad!”

Olive went nearly all the way to Harbury. She was almost happy, walking between Harold's mother and Harold's child. But when she parted from them she felt alone, bitterly alone. Then first she began to realise the truth, that the dream of so many months was now altogether ended! It had been something, even after her sorrow began, to feel that Harold was near! that, although days might pass without her seeing him, still he was there—within a few miles. Any time, sitting wearily in her painting room, she might hear his knock at the door; or in any walk, however lonely and sad, there was at least the possibility of his crossing her path, and, despite her will, causing her heart to bound with joy. Now, all these things could not be again. She went homeward along the dear old Harbury road, knowing that no possible chance could make his image appear to brighten its loneliness; that where they had so often walked, taking sweet counsel together as familiar friends, she must learn to walk alone. Perhaps, neither there nor elsewhere, would she ever walk with Harold more.

In her first suffering, in her brave resolve to quit Harbury, she had not thought how she should feel when all was indeed over. She had not pictured the utter blankness of a world wherein Harold was not. The snare broken and her soul escaped, she knew not how it would beat its broken wings in the dun air, meeting nothing but the black, silent waste, ready once more to flutter helplessly down into the alluring death.

Olive walked along with feet heavy and slow. In her eyes were no tears—she had wept them all away long since. She did not look up much; but still she saw, as one sees in a dream, all that was around her—the white, glittering grass, the spectral hedges, the trees laden with a light snow, silent, motionless, stretching their bare arms up to the dull sky. No, not the sky, that seemed far, far off; between it and earth interposed a mist, so thick and cold that it blinded sight and stifled breath. She could not look up at God's dear heaven—she almost felt that through the gloom the pitying Heaven could not look at her. But after a while the mist changed a little, and then Olive drew her breath, and her thoughts began to form themselves as she went along.

“I am now alone, quite alone. I must shut my life up in myself—look to no one's help, yearn for no one's love. What I receive I will take thankfully; but I have no claim upon any one in this wide world. Many pleasant friendships I have, many tender ties, but none close enough to fill the void in my heart—none to love as I could love—as I did love for many years. Oh, mother, why did you go away? Why did I love again—lose again? Always loving only to lose.”

Many times she said to herself, “I am alone—quite alone in the world;” and at last the words seemed to strike the echo of some old remembrance. But it was one so very dim, that for a long time Olive could not give it any distinct form. At last she recollected the letter which, ten years ago, she had put away in a secret drawer of her father's desk. Strange to say, she had never thought of it since. Perhaps this was because, at the time, she had instinctively shuddered at the suggestions it gave, and so determined to banish them. And then the quick, changing scenes of life had prevented her ever recurring to the subject Now, when all had come true, when on that desert land which, still distant, had seemed so fearful to the girl's eyes, the woman's feet already stood, she turned with an eager desire to the words which her father had written—“To his daughter Olive when she was quite alone in the world.”

Reaching home, and hearing Christal warbling some Italian song, Olive went at once to her own apartment, half parlour, half studio. There was a fire lit, and candles. She fastened the door, that she might not be interrupted, and sat down before her desk.

She found some difficulty in opening the secret drawer, for the spring was rusty from long disuse, and her own fingers trembled much. When at last she held the letter in her hand, its yellow paper and faded ink struck her painfully. It seemed like suddenly coming face to face with the dead.

A solemn, anxious feeling stole over her. Ere breaking the seal, she lingered long; she tried to call up all she remembered of her father—his face—his voice—his manners. Very dim everything was! She had been such a mere child until he died, and the ten following years were so full of action, passion, and endurance, that they made the old time look pale and distant. She could hardly remember how she used to feel then, least of all how she used to feel towards her father. She had loved him, she knew, and her mother had loved him, ay, long after love became only memory. He had loved them, too, in his quiet way. Olive thought, with tender remembrance, of his kiss, on that early morning when, for the last time, he had left his home. And for her mother! Often, during Mrs. Rothesay's declining days, had she delighted to talk of the time when she was a young, happy wife, and of the dear love that Angus bore her. Something, too, she hinted of her own faults, which had once taken away that love, and something in Olive's own childish memory told her that this was true. But she repelled the thought, remembering that her father and mother were now together before God.

At length with an effort she opened the letter. She started to see its date—the last night Captain Rothesay ever spent at home—the night, which of all others, she had striven to remember clearly, because they were all three so happy together, and he had been so kind, so loving, to her mother and to her. Thinking of him on this wise, with a most tender sadness, she began to read:

“Olive Rothesay—My dear Child!—It may be many—many years—(I pray so, God knows!) before you open this letter. If so, think of me as I sit writing it now—or rather as I sat an hour ago—by your mother's side, with your arms round my neck. And, thus thinking of me, consider what a fierce struggle I must have had to write as I am going to do—to confess what I never would have confessed while I lived, or while your mother lived. I do it, because remorse is strong upon me; because I would fain that my Olive—the daughter who may comfort me, if I live—should, if I die, make atonement for her father's sins. Ay, sins. Think how I must be driven, thus to humble myself before my own child—to unfold to my pure daughter that—But I will tell the tale plainly, without any exculpation or reserve.

“I was very young when I married Sybilla Hyde. God be my witness, I loved her then, and in my inmost heart I have loved her evermore. Remember, I say this—hear it as if I were speaking from my grave—Olive, I did love your mother. Would to Heaven she had loved me, or shown her love, only a little more!

“Soon after our marriage I was parted from my wife for some years. You, a girl, ought not to know—and I pray may never know—the temptations of the world and of man's own nature. I knew both, and I withstood both. I came back, and clasped my wife to the most loving and faithful heart that ever beat in a husband's breast. I write this even with tears—I, who have been so cold. But in this letter—which no eye will ever see until I and your mother have lain together long years in our grave—I write as if I were speaking, not as now, but as I should speak then.

“Well, between my wife and me there came a cloud. I know not whose was the fault—perhaps mine, perhaps hers; or, it might be, both. But there the cloud was—it hung over my home, so that I could find therein no peace, no refuge. It drove me to money-getting, excitement, amusement—at last to crime!

“In the West Indies there was one who had loved me, in vain,—mark you, I said in vain,—but with the vehemence of her southern blood. She was a Quadroon lady—one of that miserable race, the children of planters and slaves, whose beauty is their curse, whose passion knows no law except a blind fidelity. And, God forgive me! that poor wretch was faithful unto me.

“She followed me to England without my knowledge. Little she had ever heard of marriage; she found no sacred-ness in mine. I did not love her—not with a pure heart as I loved Sybilla. But I pitied her. Sometimes I turned from my dreary home—where no eye brightened at mine, where myself and my interests were nothing—and I thought of this woman, to whom I was all the world. My daughter Olive, if ever you be a wife, and would keep your husband's love, never let these thoughts enter and pollute his mind. Give him your whole heart, and he will ask no other. Make his home sweet and pleasant to him, and he will not stray from it. Bind him round with cords of love—fast—fast. Oh, that my wife had had strength so to encircle me!

“But she had not; and so the end came! Olive, you are not my only child.

“I have no desire to palliate my sin. Sin, I know it was, heavy and deadly; against God's law, against my trusting wife, and against that hapless creature on whom I brought a whole lifetime of misery. Ay, not on her alone, but on that innocent being who has received from me nothing but the heritage of shame, and to whom in this world I can never make atonement. No man can! I felt this when she was born. It was a girl, too—a helpless girl. I looked on the little face, sleeping so purely, and remembered that on her brow would rest through life a perpetual stain; and that I, her father, had fixed it there. Then there awoke in me a remorse which can never die. For, alas, Olive, I have more to unfold! My remorse, like my crimes, was selfish at the root, and I wreaked it on her, who, if guilty, was less guilty than I.

“One day I came to her, restless and angry, unable to hide the worm that was continually gnawing at my heart. She saw it there, and her proud spirit rose; she poured on me a torrent of reproachful words. I answered them as one who had erred like me was sure to answer. Poor wretch! I reviled her as having been the cause of my misery. When I saw her in her fury, I contrasted her image with that of the pale, patient, trusting creature I had left that morning—my wife, my poor Sybilla—until, hating myself, I absolutely loathed her—the enchantress who had been my undoing. With her shrill voice yet pursuing me, I precipitately left the house. Next day mother and child had disappeared! Whither, I knew not; and I never have known, though I left no effort untried to solve a mystery which made me feel like a murderer.

“Nevertheless, I believe that they are still alive—these wretched two. If I did not, I should almost go mad at times.

“Olive, have pity on your father, and hearken to what I implore. Whilst I live, I shall continue this search—but I may die without having had the chance of making atonement. In that case I entreat of my daughter Olive to stand between her father and his sin. If you have no other ties—if you never marry, but live alone in the world—seek out and protect that child! Remember, she is of your own blood—she, at least, never wronged you. In showing mercy to her, you do so to me, your father; who, when you read this, will have been for years among the dead, though the evil that he caused may still remain unexpiated. Oh! think that this is his voice crying out from the dust, beseeching you to absolve his memory. Save me from the horrible thought, now haunting me evermore, that the being who owes me life may one day heap curses on her father's name!

“Herewith enclosed you will find instructions respecting an annuity I wish paid to—to the woman. It was placed in——'s bank by Mr. Wyld, whom, however, I deceived concerning it—I am now old enough in the school of hypocrisy. Hitherto the amount has never been claimed.

“Olive, my daughter, forgive me! Judge me not harshly. I never would have asked this of you while your mother lived—your mother, whom I loved, though I wronged her so grievously. In some things, perhaps, she erred towards me; but I ought to have shown her more sympathy, and have dealt gently with her tender nature, so unlike my own. May God forgive us both!—God, in whose presence we shall both be, when you, our daughter, read this record. And may He bless you evermore, prays your loving father,

“Angus Rothesay.

“Celia Manners was her name. Her child she called Christal.”

It ceased—this voice from the ten years' silent grave of Angus Rothesay. His daughter sat motionless, her fixed eyes blindly out-gazing, her whole frame cold and rigid, frozen into a statue of stone.