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Tears came silently into Mary’s eyes; she said nothing, but sat with her hands clasped around one knee, gazing seaward.

“You don’t seem very happy, though,” pursued Redmond, after a pause; “and you acted so oddly when I first found you and Mr. Drayton together–I almost thought–well, I didn’t know what to think. You do love me, don’t you?”

For a few moments Mary Leithe sat quite motionless, save for a slight tremor of the nerves that pervaded her whole body; and then, all at once, she melted into sobs. Redmond could not imagine what was the matter with her; but he put his arms round her, and after a little hesitation or resistance, the girl hid her face upon his shoulder, and wept for the secret that she would never tell.

But Mary Leithe’s nature was not a stubborn one, and easily adapted itself to the influences with which she was most closely in contact. When she and Redmond presented themselves at Aunt Corwin’s cottage that evening her tears were dried, and only a tender dimness of the eyes and a droop of her sweet mouth betrayed that she had shed any.

“Mr. Drayton wanted to be remembered to you, Mary,” observed Aunt Corwin, shortly before going to bed. She had been floating colored sea- weeds on paper all the time since supper, and had scarcely spoken a dozen words.

“Has he gone?” Mary asked.

“Who? Oh, yes; he had a telegram, I believe. His trunks were to follow him. He said he would write. I liked that man. He was not like Mr. Haymaker; he was a gentleman. He took an interest in my collections, and gave me several nice specimens. Your mother was a fool not to have married him. I wish you could have married him yourself. But it was not to be expected that he would care for a child like you, even if your head were not turned by that Frank Redmond. How soon shall you let him marry you?”

“Whenever he likes,” answered Mary Leithe, turning away.

As a matter of fact, they were married the following winter. A week before the ceremony a letter arrived for Mary from New York, addressed in a legal hand. It contained an intimation that, in accordance with the instructions of their client, Mr. Ambrose Drayton, the undersigned had placed to her account the sum of fifty thousand dollars as a preliminary bequest, it being the intention of Mr. Drayton to make her his heir. There was an inclosure from Drayton himself, which Mary, after a moment’s hesitation, placed in her lover’s hand, and bade him break the seal.

It contained only a few lines, wishing happiness to the bride and bridegroom, and hoping they all might meet in Europe, should the wedding trip extend so far. “And as for you, my dear niece,” continued the writer, “whenever you think of me remember that little poem of Emerson’s that we read on the rocks the last time I saw you. The longer I live the more of truth do I find in it, especially in the last verse:

“‘Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive!'”

“What does that mean?” demanded Redmond, looking up from the letter.

“We can not know except by experience,” answered Mary Leithe.