yet somehow she had never been able to say it. The moment of parting had
come.

"What are you thinking of, Richard?" she said now. He started and
turned towards her.

"I hardly know," he answered. "My thoughts were drifting."

"Richard," she said abruptly," I want to thank you."

"Thank me for what, Lali?" he questioned.

"To thank you, Richard, for everything--since I came, over three years
ago."

He broke out into a soft little laugh, then, with his old good-natured
manner, caught her hand as he did the first night she came to Greyhope,
patted it in a fatherly fashion, and said:

"It is the wrong way about, Lali; I ought to be thanking you, not you me.
Why, look what a stupid old fogy I was then, toddling about the place
with too much time on my hands, reading a lot and forgetting everything;
and here you came in, gave me something to do, made the little I know of
any use, and ran a pretty gold wire down the rusty fiddle of life. If
there are any speeches of gratitude to be made, they are mine, they are
mine."

"Richard," she said very quietly and gravely, "I owe you more than I can
ever say--in English. You have taught me to speak in your tongue enough
for all the usual things of life, but one can only speak from the depths