again, "it is too old for her. Her face was very young--always very
young."

"But has she not sorrow now, sir?" the other persisted gently.

The grey head was shaken sadly, and the unsteady voice meditatively
murmured: "Such beauty, such presence! I was but five-and-thirty then."
There was a slight pause, and then, with his hand touching the young
man's shoulder, Louis Bachelor continued: "You are young; you have a good
heart; I know men. You have the sympathy of the artist--why should I not
speak to you? I have been silent about it so long. You have brought the
past back, I know not how, so vividly! I dream here, I work here; men
come with merchandise and go again; they only bind my tongue; I am not of
them: but you are different, as it seems to me, and young. God gave me a
happy youth. My eyes were bright as yours, my heart as fond. You love--
is it not so? Ah, you smile and blush like an honest man. Well, so much
the more I can speak now. God gave me then strength and honour and love
--blessed be His name! And then He visited me with sorrow, and, if I
still mourn, I have peace, too, and a busy life." Here he looked at the
sketch again.

"Then I was a soldier. She was my world. Ah, true, love is a great
thing--a great thing! She had a brother. They two with their mother
were alone in the world, and we were to be married. One day at Gibraltar
I received a letter from her saying that our marriage could not be; that
she was going away from England; that those lines were her farewell; and
that she commended me to the love of Heaven. Such a letter it was--so
saintly, so unhappy, so mysterious! When I could get leave I went to
England. She--they--had gone, and none knew whither; or, if any of her
friends knew, none would speak. I searched for her everywhere. At last