  The newspapers had cried out that Hubert Lepel's two years were a miserably insufficient punishment for the crime of which he had been guilty; but to Cynthia it seemed as if those two years were an eternity. She did not talk about him to any one; she interested herself apparently in the affairs of her father's house; she made a thousand occupations for herself in the new land to which she had gone. Occasionally she had a letter—which she dearly prized—from Enid Vane, and in these letters she heard a little now and then about Hubert; but, after Enid's marriage, the letters became less frequent, and at last ceased altogether. And then she knew that the two years were over, and that Hubert must be free. Free—or dead! She sometimes had a keen darting fear that she would never see his face again. His health had suffered very much in confinement, she had learnt from Enid's letters; and she knew that he had seemed very weak and ill during those terrible days of his trial for manslaughter. She could never think of them without a shiver. How had the two years ended for him? Was he a wreck, without hope without energy, without strength, coming out of prison only to die? Cynthia brooded over these possibilities until sleep fled from her eyes and the color from her cheeks. Her father looked at her now and then with anxious, grieving eyes; but he did not say a word. She noticed however that he greatly advocated the good qualities of a fine young Scotchman called MacPhail, who "Dear father," she said, taking his grizzled head between her hands one day and kissing it, "I like your Mr. MacPhail very well; but I shall get tired of him very soon if you are always praising him so much." "But you do like him, Cynthy?" said her father, turning round hastily. "Oh, yes—I think that he is a very estimable young man! I know all his good points by heart; but I can't say that I find him interesting." "Interesting?" echoed Westwood. "What do you mean, Cynthy? Isn't he clever enough for you?" "He is clever enough for anybody, no doubt," said Cynthia, with a little laugh. "But he never reads, he never thinks—except about his stock—and he isn't even a gentleman." "Neither am I, Cynthia, my dear," said her father sorrowfully. "You, you darling old man," said the girl lightly—"as if you were not one of Nature's gentlemen, and the dearest and noblest of men to boot! If he were like you, father, I should think twice as much of him;" and she put her arm round his neck and kissed him. Westwood's face beamed. "You're not ashamed of your old father?" he said delightedly. "Bless you, my girl! What I shall do when the time comes for me to lose you, I'm sure I don't know!" "You are not likely to lose me father. I shall probably stay with you always," said Cynthia rather sadly. But she brightened up when she saw his questioning face. "You and I shall always keep house together, shall we not?" "Don't you think, Cynthia," said he, detaining her as she was about to move away, "that we might take MacPhail into partnership some of these days?" "Partnership?" she repeated, not seeing his drift at "It isn't a partner for myself that I'm talking about, my pretty. I want a son—and the partner would be for you. In plain words, Donald MacPhail is head over ears in love with you Cynthia. Couldn't you bring yourself to look upon him as your husband, don't you think?" "No, I could not," said Cynthia quickly and decisively. "There is only one man whom I could think of—and you know who that one is. If I do not marry him, I will marry nobody at all." Westwood sighed and looked dispirited, but said no more. Cynthia exerted herself to be particularly frigid to Mr. MacPhail when he next visited the house, and succeeded so well that the young Scotchman was utterly dismayed by her demeanor, and was not seen there again for many a long day. Mr. MacPhail was not the only suitor that Cynthia had to send about his business. She was too handsome, too winning, to escape remark in a place where attractive women were rather rare. Her father used afterwards to observe, with a chuckle of delight, that she had had an offer from every eligible young man—and from some that were not eligible—within a circuit of sixty miles around his homestead; but Cynthia did not altogether like the recollection. They did not often see English newspapers; but at this time Westwood took to poring over any that he could obtain from neighbors or from the nearest town. One day Cynthia saw that a copy of the Standard was lying in a very conspicuous position on her writing-table. She took it up and read the announcement of the death at her own house of Leonora Vane, aged sixty-nine. She wondered a little that Enid had not written to tell her of Miss Vane's death; and then the tears fell slowly from her eyes, as she considered how completely she was now cut off from the Vanes and all their concerns—as completely as if she herself had "passed to where beyond these voices there is peace." The old life was over; she had come to a new world where all her duties lay; and the past, with its vigorous life, its passionate emotions, its intense joys, its bitter pains, existed for her no more. Thus she sat thinking, with her cheek upon her hand and the tears wet upon her long dark lashes; and she did not hear the footsteps of any one approaching until her father touched her on the shoulder and said— "Cynthy, here's visitors!" Then she looked up. At first she saw only the ruddy, face and reddish hair of the admirable MacPhail, and she rose to her feet with an impatient little sigh. After MacPhail came another neighbor—a tall thin man with a military bearing, generally known as "the Colonel," though it was not clear that he had ever held any rank in the army. And after these two a stranger followed—also a tall man, thin, dark, grave, with eyes that seemed to Cynthia like those of one who had returned from beyond the grave. A start like a sort of electric shock ran through Cynthia's frame. It was impossible for her to speak, to do more than extend her hand in silence to each of the new-comers. And then she looked once more upon her lover's face—upon the face of Hubert Lepel. In the presence of her father and the two comparative strangers, she could not even utter a word of greeting. Her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth, and she dared not even raise her eyes. Hubert seemed at first as tongue-tied as herself; but presently, she heard him talking in a quiet unobtrusive way, as if he and "the Colonel" were old friends; and it transpired that the two had met during Hubert's previous wanderings in America, and that they had seen a good deal of the world together. Before long, all four men were busily engaged on a com It was not until the meal was over and the men had gone out to smoke in the pleasant piazza, with its clustering vines which adorned the front of Westwood's house, that Cynthia had a moment in which to compare her present impressions with her past. It struck her that Hubert looked older, as well as graver and sadder, and perhaps more dignified. His hair was turning gray and thin at the temples; his moustache was also streaked with white—bleached, as Cynthia knew, by trouble, not by age. He was thin, but he looked stronger than when she saw him last; and his gait was firm and elastic. His face was slightly tanned—probably by the sun and sea-air in his recent expedition from England—and the brown hue gave him a look of health and vigor which he had not possessed in England. But the change in his expression was more striking to Cynthia than any alteration in physical aspect. His eyes had lost their anxious restlessness, his mouth was set as if in steadfast resolution; his brow was calm. He looked like a man who had gone "through much tribulation," but had come out victor at the last. And Cynthia—was she changed? He had thought so when he came upon her that afternoon; but his heart had yearned over her all the more fondly for the change. He had never seen her so thin, so pale, so worn; the dark eyes had not been set in such hollows of shadow when he last saw her; the cheeks had never before been so colorless. He felt that she had suffered for him—that she had borne his punishment with himself; and the thought made it difficult for him to restrain himself from falling at her feet and kissing the very hem of her garment as he looked at her. But at dinner she looked more like her old beautiful self. She was in black when he arrived; but she came to dinner in a pretty gown of cream-colored embroidered muslin, with a bunch of crimson flowers at her bosom. The color had come back to her cheeks too, and the light Cynthia sat in the window, not daring to join the party on the piazza—hoping perhaps that one of them would separate himself from the others and come to her. Hubert was walking with her father now—up and down, up and down, deep in talk. Was it merely talk of politics and farming and common things? She saw them withdraw to a corner of the piazza where they could converse unheard by their companions. Westwood was smoking; but his speech was fluent, Cynthia could see; he was laying down the law, emphasising his sentences by an outstretched finger, blowing great rings of smoke into the air between some of his remarks. Hubert listened and seemed to assent. His head was bowed, his arms were folded across his chest; he looked—Cynthia could not help the thought—like a prisoner receiving sentence, a penitent before his judge. Westwood turned to him at last, as if awaiting an answer—the moonlight was on his face, and showed it to be grave and anxious, but unmistakably kind. Hubert raised his head and made some answer; and then—Cynthia's heart began to beat very fast indeed—her father held out his hand. The two men grasped each other's hands warmly and silently for a moment, then both turned away. Westwood took out a great red handkerchief and blew his nose vehemently; Hubert leaned for a moment against the balustrade and put his hand across his eyes. Cynthia's own eyes swam in sympathetic tears as she strove to imagine what had been said. In that moment her love for Hubert was almost less than her love for her father—the man who, in spite of lawless instincts, faulty training, great misfortunes and mistakes, had a nature that was large enough and grand enough to know how to forgive. Her eyes were so blinded with tears that she saw but indistinctly that her father was coming across the piazza to the long open window by which she sat. She drew herself back a little, so as to be out of the range of vision of the Colonel and Mr. MacPhail. She knew that the crisis of her fate was come. "Cynthia, my dear," said her father's homely ragged voice—how dear it had grown, she felt that she had never known till now—"here's a gentleman wants to have a She felt that Hubert had followed him, and had stepped into the room; but she could not raise her eyes. She was obliged to see him however when he knelt down before her, and put his clasped hands very gently upon her knee. "Cynthia," said his voice—the other voice that she loved to hear—"your father says that he has forgiven me. Can you forgive?" She put her hand upon his, and a great tear fell down her cheeks. "I have nothing to urge in my defence," he said. "If you like to punish me—to send me away from you for ever—I know that I shall have deserved my fate. I dare not ask for anything from you, Cynthia, except your forgiveness. May I hope to gain that?" "If my father has forgiven you," she said a little hurriedly, "I cannot do less." There was a little silence. He bowed his head and touched with his lips the slender fingers that rested lightly upon his own joined hands. He felt that she trembled at the touch. "What is to be my fate, Cynthia? I put my life into your hands. I owe it to your father and to you." "What do you want it to be?" she asked softly, but with an effort of which he was profoundly conscious and ashamed. "Oh, my love, my only love, you know what I desire!" he said, with sudden passion; and for the first time he raised his head and looked into her face. "I dare not ask—I am not worthy! If there is anything that you can bear to say—to give me—you must do it of your own free will; I cannot ask you for anything." "But you know," said Cynthia, looking at him at last, and letting, the gleam of a smile appear through the tears that filled her eyes, "a woman likes to be asked." But, when there was no longer any need, he found it easier to ask questions. "Cynthia, my darling, do you love me?" "With my whole heart, Hubert!" "And will you—will you really—be—my wife?" "Yes, Hubert." "And you forgive me? Oh, that is more wonderful than all! You bow me to the earth with your goodness—you and your father, Cynthia! What can I do to be worthy of it? He is going to give me his name as well as yourself; and Heaven knows that I will do my best to keep it clean!" His head sank on her bosom. "Hubert," she said, "you must not talk in that way! Do you think that I should ever be ashamed of your name, darling? It is just that my father has no son, and does not want his old name to die out. If you will sacrifice your name, instead of my sacrificing mine, as women generally do, you will make him very happy and very proud of you. He wants a son, and you will be as a son to him, Hubert darling, will you not?" And so the treaty was ratified. Hubert and Cynthia were married in three weeks; and the marriage turned out an uncommonly happy one. Contrary to even Cynthia's expectations, Westwood and his son-in-law became the very best of friends. Westwood was proud of Hubert's literary knowledge, of his former social standing, of his many gifts and accomplishments. It was he who one day proposed that Hubert should go back to the name of Lepel—the name by which he had been known in the literary and dramatic world, and by which he would perhaps be remembered long after "the Beechfield tragedy" was forgotten. But Hubert refused. He was too proud of the new name that he had won, he said, ever to give it up. As for literature, he had no inclination for it now. In this new home, in a new world, with father, wife, and boys beside him, and a political career which opened out a future such as he had never dreamed of when he was writing his plays and poems in Russell Square—a future made easy to him by Westwood's
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