"And, Ermine, if it be, what shall I do?"

"Do as you feel right at the moment," said Ermine, after a moment's pause. "I cannot tell how it may be. I have been thinking over what you told me about the Major and Lady Temple."

"Oh, Ermine, what a reproof this is for that bit of gossip."

"Not at all, my dear, the warning may be all the better for me," said Ermine, with a voice less steady than her words. "It is not what, under the circumstances, I could think likely in the Colin whom I knew; but were it indeed so, then, Ailie, you had better say nothing about me, unless he found you out. We would get employment elsewhere."

"And I must leave you to the suspense all day."

"Much better so. The worst thing we could do would be to go on talking about it. It is far better for me to be left with my dear little unconscious companion."

Alison tried to comfort herself with this belief through the long hours of the morning, during which she only heard that mamma and Colonel Keith were gone to the Homestead, and she saw no one till she came forth with her troop to the midday meal.

And there, at sight of Lady Temple's content and calm, satisfied look, as though she were once more in an accustomed atmosphere, and felt herself and the boys protected, and of the Colonel's courteous attention to her and affectionate authority towards her sons, it was an absolute pang to recognise the hue of eye described by Ermine; but still Alison tried to think them generic Keith eyes, till at length, amid the merry chatter of her pupils, came an appeal to "Miss Williams," and then came a look that thrilled through her, the same glance that she had met for one terrible moment twelve years before, and renewing the same longing to shrink from all sight or sound. How she kept her seat and continued to attend to the children she never knew, but the voices sounded like a distant Babel; and she did not know whether she were most relieved, disappointed, or indignant when she left the dining-room to take the boys for their walk. Oh, that Ermine could be hid from all knowledge of what would be so much harder to bear than the death in which she had long believed!

Harder to bear? Yes, Ermine had already been passing through a heart sickness that made the morning like an age. Her resolute will had struggled hard for composure, cheerfulness, and occupation; but the little watchful niece had seen through the endeavour, and had made her own to the sleepless night and the headache. The usual remedy was a drive in a wheeled chair, and Rose was so urgent to be allowed to go and order one, that Ermine at last yielded, partly because she had hardly energy enough to turn her refusal graciously, partly because she would not feel herself staying at home for the vague hope and when the child was out of sight, she had the comfort of clasping her hands, and ceasing to restrain her countenance, while she murmured, "Oh, Colin, Colin, are you what you were twelve years back? Is this all dream, all delusion, and waste of feeling, while you are lying in your Indian grave, more mine than you can ever be living be as it may,--

"'Calm me, my God, and keep me calm While these hot breezes blow; Be like the night dew's cooling balm Upon earth's fevered brow.

Calm me, my God, and keep me calm, Soft resting on Thy breast; Soothe me with holy hymn and psalm, And bid my spirit rest.'"

CHAPTER V. MILITARY SOCIETY.

"My trust Like a good parent did beget of him A falsehood in its contrary as great As my trust was, which had indeed no limit."--TEMPEST.

Rose found the wheeled chair, to which her aunt gave the preference, was engaged, and shaking her little discreet head at "the shakey chair" and "the stuffy chair," she turned pensively homeward, and was speeding down Mackarel Lane, when she was stayed by the words, "My little girl!" and the grandest and most bearded gentleman she had ever seen, demanded, "Can you tell me if Miss Williams lives here?"

"My aunt?" exclaimed Rose, gazing up with her pretty, frightened-fawn look.

"Indeed!" he exclaimed, looking eagerly at her, "then you are the child of a very old friend of mine! Did you never hear him speak of his old school-fellow, Colin Keith?"

"Papa is away," said Rose, turning back her neck to get a full view of his face from under the brim of her hat.

"'Will you run on and ask your aunt if she would like to see me?" he added.

Thus it was that Ermine heard the quick patter of the child's steps, followed by the manly tread, and the words sounded in her ears, "Aunt Ermine, there's a gentleman, and he has a great beard, and he says he is papa's old friend! And here he is."

Ermine's beaming eyes as absolutely met the new comer as though she had sprung forward. "I thought you would come," she said, in a voice serene with exceeding bliss.

"I have found you at last," as their hands clasped; and they gazed into each other's faces in the untroubled repose of the meeting, exclusive of all else.

Ermine was the first to break silence. "Oh, Colin, you look worn and altered."

"You don't; you have kept your sunbeam face for me with the dear brown glow I never thought to have seen again. Why did they tell me you were an invalid, Ermine?"

"Have you not seen Alison?" she asked, supposing he would have known all.

"I saw her, but did not hear her name, till just now at luncheon, when our looks met, and I saw it was not another disappointment."

"And she knows you are come to me?"

"It was not in me to speak to her till I had recovered you! One can forgive, but not forget."

"You will do more when you know her, and how she has only lived and worked for me, dear Ailie, and suffered far more than I--"

"While I was suffering from being unable to do anything but live for you," he repeated, taking up her words; "but that is ended now--" and as she made a negative motion of her head, "have you not trusted to me?"

"I have thought you not living," she said; "the last I know was your letter to dear Lady Alison, written from the hospital at Cape Town, after your wound. She was ill even when it came, and she could only give it to Ailie for me."

"Dear good aunt, she got into trouble with all the family for our sake; and when she was gone no one would give me any tidings of you."

"It was her last disappointment that you were not sent home on sick leave. Did you get well too fast?"

"Not exactly; but my father, or rather, I believe, my brother, intimated that I should be welcome only if I had laid aside a certain foolish fancy, and as lying on my back had not conduced to that end, I could only say I would stay where I was."

"And was it worse for you? I am sure, in spite of all that tanned skin, that your health has suffered. Ought you to have come home?"

"No, I do not know that London surgeons could have got at the ball,"

he said, putting his hand on his chest, "and it gives me no trouble in general. I was such a spectacle when I returned to duty, that good old Sir Stephen Temple, always a proverb for making his staff a refuge for the infirm, made me his aide-de-camp, and was like a father to me."

"Now I see why I never could find your name in any list of the officers in the moves of the regiment! I gave you quite up when I saw no Keith among those that came home from India. I did believe then that you were the Colonel Alexander Keith whose death I had seen mentioned, though I had long trusted to his not being honourable, nor having your first name."

"Ah! he succeeded to the command after Lady Temple's father. A kind friend to me he was, and he left me in charge of his son and daughter.

A very good and gallant fellow is that young Alick. I must bring him to see you some day--"

"Oh! I saw his name; I remember! I gloried in the doings of a Keith; but I was afraid he had died, as there was no such name with the regiment when it came home."

"No, he was almost shattered to pieces; but Sir Stephen sent him up the hills to be nursed by Lady Temple and her mother, and he was sent home as soon as he could be moved. I was astonished to see how entirely he had recovered."

"Then you went through all that Indian war?"

"Yes; with Sir Stephen."

"You must show me all your medals! How much you have to tell me! And then--?"

"Just when the regiment was coming home, my dear old chief was appointed to the command in Australia, and insisted on my coming with him as military secretary. He had come to depend on me so much that I could not well leave him; and in five years there was the way to promotion and to claiming you at once. We were just settled there, when what I heard made me long to have decided otherwise, but I could not break with him then.

I wrote to Edward, but had my letter returned to me."

"No wonder; Edward was abroad, all connexion broken."

"I wrote to Beauchamp, and he knew nothing, and I could only wait till my chief's time should be up. You know how it was cut short, and how the care of the poor little widow detained me till she was fit for the voyage. I came and sought you in vain in town. I went home, and found my brother lonely and dispirited. He has lost his son, his daughters are married, and he and I are all the brothers left out of the six! He was urgent that I should come and live with him and marry. I told him I would, with all my heart, when I had found you, and he saw I was too much in earnest to be opposed. Then I went to Beauchamp, but Harry knew nothing about any one. I tried to find out your sister and Dr. Long, but heard they were gone to Belfast."