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“Dear Bess, what troubles you? Let me share your sorrow and try to lighten it,” he cried with anxious tenderness, sitting beside her on the little couch where Jamie fell asleep.

In the frank face smiling on her, the girl’s innocent eyes read nothing but the friendly interest of a brother, and remembering his care and kindness, she forgot her womanly timidity in her great longing for sympathy, and freely told him all.

Told him of the lover she left years ago to cling to Jamie, and how this lover went across the sea hoping to increase his little fortune that the helpless brother might be sheltered for love of her. How misfortune followed him, and when she looked to welcome back a prosperous man, there came a letter saying that all was lost and he must begin the world anew and win a home to offer her before he claimed the heart so faithful to him all these years.

“He writes so tenderly and bears his disappointment bravely for my sake; but it is very hard to see our happiness deferred again when such a little sum would give us to each other.”

As she ceased, Bess looked for comfort into the countenance of her companion, never seeing through her tears how pale it was with sudden grief, how stern with repressed emotion. She only saw the friend whom Jamie loved and that tie drew her toward him as to an elder brother to whom she turned for help, unconscious then how great his own need was.

“I never knew of this before, Bess; you kept your secret well” he said, trying to seem unchanged.

The color deepened in her cheek; but she answered simply, “I never spoke of it, for words could do no good, and Jamie grieved silently about it, for he thought it a great sacrifice, though I looked on it as a sacred duty, and he often wearied himself to show in many loving ways how freshly he remembered it. My grateful little Jamie.”

And her eyes wandered to the green tree-tops tossing in the wind, whose shadows flickered pleasantly above the child.

“Let me think a little, Bess, before I counsel you. Keep a good heart and rest assured that I will help you if I can,” said Walter, trying to speak hopefully.

“But you come to tell me something; at least, I fancied I saw some good tidings in your face just now. Forgive my selfish grief, and see how gladly I will sympathize with any joy of yours.”

“It is nothing, Bess, another time will do as well,” he answered, eager to be gone lest he should betray what must be kept most closely now.

“It never will be told, Bess,–never in this world,” he sighed bitterly as he went back to his own room which never in his darkest hours had seemed so dreary; for now the bright hope of his life was gone.

“I have it in my power to make them happy,” he mused as he sat alone, “but I cannot do it, for in this separation lies my only hope. He may die or may grow weary, and then to whom will Bess turn for comfort but to me? I will work on, earn riches and a name, and if that hour should come, then in her desolation I will offer all to Bess and surely she will listen and accept. Yet it were a generous thing to make her happiness at once, forgetful of my own. How shall I bear to see her waiting patiently, while youth and hope are fading slowly, and know that I might end her weary trial and join two faithful hearts? Oh, Jamie, I wish to Heaven I were asleep with you, freed from the temptations that beset me. It is so easy to perceive the right, so hard to do it.”

The sound of that familiar name, uttered despairingly, aloud, fell with a sweet and solemn music upon Walter’s ear. A flood of tender memories swept away the present, and brought back the past. He thought of that short life, so full of pain and yet of patience, of the sunny nature which no cloud could overshadow, and the simple trust which was its strength and guide.