"It was cruel in you, my sweet Lillian, to banish me so long, but how ill you look," and Grace Stanley clasped her arms about the dear form and kissed the pale cheek tenderly.
"You are mistaken, pretty cousin, in my general appearance, for I have not been so well in a long time. In fact, your 'poor despondent cousin' is almost happy to-day."
Lillian was looking into the face of her companion while her pure liquid eyes were overflowing with the new-found joy that was filling her heart.
"I have been troubled, Grace. Yesterday a heavy wave rolled over me, that came near burying your 'Lily Bell' beneath it. But it has passed on, and I was left out of the tempest, and a hand reached out to hold me as I was going down beneath the roaring billows. At any rate I am standing firm to-day, and have no fears of winds or storms. Somehow I feel secure in the belief that I shall be shielded and brought through it all," and the fair head drooped for awhile on her hand, and the joyful tears came and baptised afresh her trembling new-born hope. Grace had no word of trust to lay on the altar of consecration, and could only sit at the feet of her who was casting her all upon it, and be silent.
"Forgive me cousin, my heart and thoughts have been straying. I wanted to talk with you that I might, if possible, break the last cord that binds me so tenaciously to the dark scenes of the past that I would bury forever."
"Are you able, Lillian, to bear the agitation such a conversation would subject you to?" interposed Grace, with much feeling. "It would make me very happy to know you had opened wide the door of your poor heart and taken me into its sacred places, yet I would not give you the slightest needless pain."
"Thoughtful as ever, darling; but I feel quite sufficient for the task. Yesterday you heard me tell George St. Clair of my marriage, and how my mother came to the city and influenced me to go with her. No doubt you think it strange, as he did, that no greater effort has been made by my husband to reclaim his lost bride. I could not tell him all, the old habitual fear made me silent. I am free to-day, and my confidence is unfettered. No power could have kept him but the one this guilty hand set up between us."
"You, Lillian?"
"Yes, Grace, I did it. Not willingly, not quite consciously, yet I did it."
Grace looked puzzled, and her bright eyes were fixed intently on the sweet face she so loved, then she said, "Go on."