One spring evening, rather more than two years after the wedding, Sigrid was working away in the little back garden, to which, now that her household duties were light, she devoted a good deal of her time. It joined the garden of Rowan Tree House, and, for greater convenience, an opening had been made in the hedge, and a little green gate put up. Upon this gate leaned Cecil chatting comfortably, her tennis racquet under her arm, and with a pleasant consciousness that the work of the day was over, and that Roy and Frithiof might soon be expected for the nightly game which, during the season, they seldom cared to miss.

“They are late this evening,” said Sigrid. “I wonder whether Herr Sivertsen has caught Frithiof. I hope not, for the tennis does him so much good.”

“Is he working very hard?” asked Cecil.

“He always works furiously; and just now I think he has got what some one called ‘the lust of finishing’ upon him; we see very little of him, for when he is not at business he is hard at work over Herr Sivertsen’s manuscript. But it really seems to agree with him; they say, you know, that work without worry harms no one.”

“A very moral precept,” said a voice behind her, and glancing up she saw Frithiof himself crossing the little lawn.

The two years had not greatly altered him, but he seemed more full of life and vigor than before, and success and hope had entirely banished the look of conflict which for so long had been plainly visible in his face. Sigrid felt proud of him as she glanced round; there was something in his mere physical strength which always appealed to her.

“We were just talking about you,” she said, “and wondering when you would be ready to play.”

“After that remark of yours which I overheard I almost think I shall have to eschew tennis,” he said, laughing. “Why should I give a whole hour to it when Herr Sivertsen is impatiently waiting for the next installment?”

“Herr Sivertsen is insatiable,” said Sigrid, taking off her gardening-gloves. “And I’m not going to allow you to return to your old bad ways; as long as you live with me you will have to be something more than a working drudge.”

“Since Sigrid has begun baby’s education,” said Frithiof, turning laughingly to Cecil, “we notice that she has become very dictatorial to the rest of us.”

“You shouldn’t make stage asides in such a loud voice,” said Sigrid, pretending to box his ears. “I am going to meet Roy and to fetch the racquets, and you take him into the garden, Cecil, and make him behave properly.”

“Are you really so specially busy just now?” asked Cecil, as he opened the little gate and joined her; “or was it only your fun?”

“No, it was grim earnest,” he replied. “For since Herr Sivertsen has been so infirm I have had most of his work to do. But it is well-paid work, and a very great help toward the debt fund. In ten years’ time I may be free.”

“You will really have paid off everything?”

“I quite hope to be able to do so.”

“It will be a great work done,” she said thoughtfully. “But when it is all finished, I wonder whether you will not feel a little like the men who work all their lives to make a certain amount and then retire, and can’t think what to do with themselves?”

“I hope not,” said Frithiof; “but I own that there is a chance of it. You see, the actual work in itself is hateful to me. Never, I should think, was there any one who so loathed indoor work of all kinds, specially desk work. Yet I have learned to take real interest in the business, and that will remain and still be my duty when the debts are cleared off. It is a shocking confession, but I own that when Herr Sivertsen’s work is no longer a necessity it will be an immense relief to me, and I doubt if I shall ever open that sort of book again.”

“It must be terrible drudgery,” said Cecil, “since you can’t really like it.”

“Herr Sivertsen has given me up as a hopeless case; he has long ago ceased to talk about Culture with a capital C to it; he no longer expects me to take any interest in the question whether earth-worms do or do not show any sensitiveness to sound when placed on a grand piano. I told him that the bare idea is enough to make any one in the trade shudder.”

Cecil laughed merrily. It was by no means the first time that he had told her of his hopeless lack of all literary and scientific tastes, and she admired him all the more for it, because he kept so perseveringly to the work, and disregarded his personal tastes so manfully. They had, moreover, many points in common, for there was a vein of poetry in his nature as well as in hers; like most Norwegians, he was musical, and his love of sport and of outdoor life had not robbed him of the gentler tastes—love of scenery and love of home.

“See!” she exclaimed, “there is the first narcissus. How early it is! I must take it to mother, for she is so fond of them.”

He stooped to gather the flower for her, and as she took it from him, he just glanced at her for a moment; she was looking very pretty that evening, her gray eyes were unusually bright, there was a soft glow of color in her fair face, an air of glad contentment seemed to hover about her. He little guessed that it was happiness in his success which was the cause of all this.

Even as he watched her, however, her color faded, her lips began to quiver, she seemed to be on the point of fainting.

“Is anything the matter?” he asked, alarmed by the sudden change in her face. “Are you ill, Cecil?”

She did not reply, but let him help her to the nearest garden seat.

“It is the scent of the narcissus; it is too strong for you,” he suggested.

“No,” she gasped. “But a most awful feeling came over me. Something is going to happen, I am sure of it.”

He looked perplexed. She dropped the narcissus from her hand, and he picked it up and put it on the farther side of the bench, still clinging to his own theory that it was the cause of her faintness. Her face, which a moment before had been so bright, was now white as the flower itself, and the look of suffering in it touched him.

His heart began to beat a little uneasily when he saw a servant approaching them from the house.

“She is right,” he thought to himself. “What on earth can it be?”

“Master asked me to give you this, Miss Cecil,” said the maid, handing her a little penciled note.

She sat up hastily, making a desperate effort to look as if nothing were wrong with her. The servant went back to the house, and Frithiof waited anxiously to hear what the note was about. She read it through and then handed it to him.

It ran as follows:

“Mr. Grantley has come, and wishes to see the children. He will not take them away for a few days, but you had better bring them down to see him.”

“He is out of prison!” exclaimed Frithiof. “But surely his time is not up yet. I thought he had five years?”

“The five years would be over next October. I knew it would come some day, but I never thought of it so soon, and to take them away in a few days!”

“I remember now,” said Frithiof; “there is a rule that by good behavior in prison they can slightly shorten their time. I am so sorry for you; it will be a fearful wrench to you to part with Lance and Gwen.”

She locked her hands together, making no attempt at an answer.

“How exactly like the world,” thought Frithiof to himself. “Here is a girl passionately devoted to these children, while the mother, who never deserved them at all, has utterly deserted them. To have had them for five years and then suddenly to lose them altogether, that is a fearful blow for her; they ought to have thought of it before adopting the children.”

“Is there nothing I can do to help you?” he said, turning toward her. “Shall I go and fetch Lance and Gwen?”

With an effort she stood up.

“No, no,” she said, trying hard to speak cheerfully. “Don’t let this spoil your game. I am better, I will go and find them.”

But by a sudden impulse he sprang up, made her take his arm and walked to the house with her.

“You are still rather shaky, I think,” he said. “Let me come with you, I can at any rate save you the stairs. How strange it was that you should have known beforehand that this was coming! Did you ever have a presentiment of that kind over anything else?”

“Never,” she said. “It was such an awful feeling. I wonder what it is that brings it.”

He left her in the hall and ran upstairs to the nursery, where he was always a welcome visitor. Both children rushed to meet him with cries of delight.

“Cecil has sent me up with a message to you,” he said.

“To say we may come down,” shouted Lance. “Is it that, Herr Frithiof?”

“No,” cried Gwen, dancing round him, “it’s to say a holiday for to-morrow, I guess.”

“No, not that exactly,” he said; “but your father has come, and Cecil wants you to come down and see him.”

The children’s faces fell. It seemed almost as if they instinctively knew of the cloud that hung over their father. They had always known that he would some day come to them; but his name had been little mentioned. It was difficult to mention it without running the risk of the terrible questions which as children they were so likely to ask. All the gladness and spirit seemed to have left them. They were both shy, and the meeting with this unknown parent was a terror to them. They clung to Frithiof as he took them downstairs, and, catching sight of Cecil leaning back in one of the hall chairs, they made a rush for her, and poured out all their childish fears as she clung to them and kissed them with all the tenderness of a real mother.

“We don’t want to go and see father,” said Lance stoutly. “We had much rather not.”

“But you must think that he wants to see you very much,” said Cecil. “He remembers you quite well, though you have forgotten him; and now that he has come back to you, you must both make him very happy, and love him.”

“I don’t like him at all,” said Gwen perversely.

“It is silly and wrong to say that,” said Cecil. “You will love him when you see him.”

“I love you,” said Gwen, with a vehement hug.

“Have you only room for one person in your heart?”

“I rather love Herr Frithiof,” said Gwen, glancing up at him through her eyelashes.

They both smiled, and Cecil, seeing that little would be gained by discussing the matter, got up and led them toward the drawing-room, her pale, brave face contrasting curiously with Gwen’s rosy cheeks and rebellious little air.

Mr. Boniface sat talking to the new-comer kindly enough. They both rose as Cecil and the children entered.

“This is my daughter,” said Mr. Boniface.

And Cecil shook hands with the ex-prisoner, and looked a little anxiously into his face.

He was rather a pleasant-looking man of five-and-thirty, and so much like Lance that she could not help feeling kindly toward him. She hoped that the children would behave well, and glanced at Gwen nervously.

But Gwen, who was a born flirt, speedily forgot her dislike, and was quite willing to meet the stranger’s advances half-way. In two minutes’ time she was contentedly sitting on his knee, while Lance stood shyly by, studying his father with a gravity which was, however, inclined to be friendly and not critical. When he had quite satisfied himself he went softly away, returning before long with a toy pistol and a boat, which he put into his father’s hands.

“What is this?” said Mr. Grantley.

“It’s my favorite toys,” said Lance. “I wanted to show them you. Quick, Gwen, run and find your doll for father.”

He seemed touched and pleased; and indeed they were such well-trained children that any parent must have been proud of them. To this ex-convict, who for years had been cut off from all child-life, the mere sight of them was refreshing. He seemed quite inclined to sit there and play with them for the rest of the evening. And Cecil sat by in a sort of dream, hearing of the new home that was to be made for the children in British Columbia—where land was to be had for a penny an acre, and where one could live on grapes and peaches, and all the most delicious fruits. Then, presently, with many expressions of gratitude for all that had been done for the children, Mr. Grantley took leave, and she led the little ones up to bed, leaving Mr. and Mrs. Boniface to go out into the garden and tell Roy and Sigrid what had passed.

“How does Cecil take it?” asked Sigrid anxiously.

“Very quietly,” was the reply; “but I am afraid she feels losing them so soon.”

Frithiof, with an uncomfortable recollection of what had passed in the garden, doubted if Mrs. Boniface fully understood the depth of Cecil’s feelings. He left them talking over the drawbacks and advantages of colonial life, and went in to his translating; but though he forgot the actual cause, he was conscious all the time of a disturbing influence, and even while absorbed in his work, had an irritating sense that something had gone wrong, and that trouble was in the air.

He went to bed and dreamed all night of Cecil. She haunted him persistently; sometimes he saw her leaning back on the garden seat, with the narcissus just falling from her hand, sometimes he saw her with the children clinging to her as they had done in the hall.

From that time forward a great change came over his attitude toward her. Hitherto his friendship with her had, it must be owned, been chiefly selfish. He had always heartily liked her, had enjoyed being at Rowan Tree House, had fallen into the habit of discussing many things with her and valuing her opinion, but it was always of himself he had thought—of what she could do for him, of what he could learn from her, of how much enjoyment he could get from her music and her frank friendliness, and her easy way of talking. It was not that he was more selfish than most men, but that they had learned really to know each other at a time when his heart was so paralyzed by Blanche’s faithlessness, so crushed by the long series of misfortunes, that giving had been out of the question for him; he could merely take and make the most of whatever she could give him.

But now all this was altered. The old wounds, though to the end of his life they must leave a scar, were really healed. He had lived through a great deal, and had lived in a way that had developed the best points in his character. He had now a growingly keen appreciation for all that was really beautiful—for purity, and strength, and tenderness, and for that quality which it is the fashion to call Altruism, but which he, with his hatred of affectation in words, called goodness.

As he thought of Cecil during those days he began to see more and more clearly the full force of her character. Hitherto he had quietly taken her for granted; there was nothing very striking about her, nothing in the least obtrusive. Perhaps if it had not been for that strange little scene in the garden he would never have taken the trouble to think of her actual character.

Through the week that followed he watched her with keen interest and sympathy. That she should be in trouble—at any rate, in trouble that was patent to all the world—was something entirely new. Their positions seemed to be reversed; and he found himself spontaneously doing everything he could think of to please and help her. Her trouble seemed to draw them together; and to his mind there was something very beautiful in her passionate devotion to the children—for it was a devotion that never in the least bordered on sentimentality. She went through everything very naturally, having a good cry now and then, but taking care not to make the children unhappy at the prospect of the parting, and arranging everything that they could possibly want, not only on the voyage, but for some time to come in their new home.

“She is so plucky!” thought Frithiof to himself, with a thrill of admiration. For he was not at all the sort of man to admire helplessness, or languor, or cowardice; they seemed to him as unlovely in a woman as in a man.

At last the actual parting came. Cecil would have liked to go down to the steamer and see the children start, but on thinking it over she decided that it would be better not.

“They will feel saying good-by,” she said, “and it had better be here. Then they will have the long drive with you to the docks, and by that time they will be all right again, and will be able to enjoy the steamer and all the novelty.”

Mr. Boniface was obliged to own that there was sound common-sense in this plan; so in their own nursery, where for nearly five years she had taken such care of them, Cecil dressed the two little ones for the last time, brushed out Gwen’s bright curls, coaxed Lance into his reefer, and then, no longer able to keep back her tears, clung to them in the last terrible parting.

“Oh, Cecil, dear, darling Cecil,” sobbed Lance, “I don’t want to go away; I don’t care for the steamer one bit.”

She was on the hearthrug, with both children nestled close to her, the thought of the unknown world that they were going out into, and the difficult future awaiting them, came sweeping over her; just as they were then, innocent, and unconscious, and happy, she could never see them again.

“Be good, Lance,” she said, through her tears. “Promise me always to try to be good.”

“I promise,” said the little fellow, hugging her with all his might. “And we shall come back as soon as ever we’re grown up—we shall both come back.”

“Yes, yes,” said Cecil, “you must come back.”

But in her heart she knew that however pleasant the meeting in future years might be, it could not be like the present; as children, and as her own special charge, she was parting with them forever.

The carriage drove up to the door; there came sounds of hurrying feet and fetching and carrying of luggage; Cecil took them downstairs, and then, with a last long embrace from Lance, and kisses interspersed with sobs from Gwen, she gave them up to her father, and turned to take leave of their nurse.

“I will take great care of them, miss,” said the maid, herself crying, “and you shall hear from me regularly.”

In another minute the carriage had driven away, and Cecil was left to make the best she might of what she could not but feel, at first, a desolate life.