heart was an unnecessary commodity. Ten years are a long while in the
life of an old woman who lives in a remote country town, and sees Death
approaching with slow yet certain stride; but that same decade is but as
a fleeting hour to the woman who is young and who lives for the moment.

The boys had been forgotten long ere they disappeared! Forgotten?
perhaps not!--but their memory put away in a hidden cell of the mind
where other inconvenient thoughts were stored: only to be released and
gazed upon when other more agreeable ones had ceased to fill the brain.

She felt humbled before this simple-minded man, whom she knew she had
shocked by the recital of her callousness. With innate gentleness of
disposition he tried to hide his feelings and to set aside the subject
for the moment.

"Sir Marmaduke was very disinterested, when he aided you in the quest,"
he said meekly, glad to be able to praise one whom he felt it his duty
to respect, "for under present circumstances ... hem! ..."

"I will raise no difficulties in Sir Marmaduke's way," she rejoined,
"there is no doubt in my mind that my boys are dead, else I had had news
of them ere this."

He looked at her keenly--as keenly as he dared with his mild, blue
eyes. It was hard to keep in sympathy with her. Her moods seemed to
change as she spoke of her boys and then of Sir Marmaduke. Her last
remark seemed to argue that her callousness with regard to her sons had
not entirely yielded to softer emotions yet.

"In case of my Lord Northallerton's death," she continued lightly, "I