There was simple truth in the earnest face before him. While she was speaking she raised her hand involuntarily to her breast, and gasped as if she were suffocating. Her words were calm, and he answered,

"I waited, for I did not know how to answer--nor do I now."

"And yet you have had some impression--some feeling--some conviction. Yon know whether it is necessary that you should come--whether she wants you for an hour's chat, as an old friend--or--or"--she waited a moment, and added--"or as something else."

As Lawrence Newt stood before her he remembered curiously his interview with Aunt Martha, but he could not say to Mrs. Simcoe what he had said to her.

"What can I say?" he asked at length, in a troubled voice.

"Lawrence Newt, say if you think she loves you, and tell me," she said, drawing herself erect and back from him, as in the twilight of the old library at Pinewood, while her thin finger was pointed upward--"tell me, as you will be judged hereafter--me, to whom her mother gave her as she died, knowing that she loved you."

Her voice died away, overpowered by emotion. She still looked at him, and suspicion, incredulity, and scorn were mingled in her look, while her uplifted finger still shook, as if appealing to Heaven. Then she asked abruptly, and fiercely,

"To which, in the name of God, are you false--the mother or the daughter?"

"Stop!" replied Lawrence Newt, in a tone so imperious that the hand of his companion fell at her side, and the scorn and suspicion faded from her eyes. "Mrs. Simcoe, there are things that even you must not say. You have lived alone with a great sorrow; you are too swift; you are unjust.

Even if I had known what you ask about Miss Hope, I am not sure that I should have done differently. Certainly, while I did not know--while, at most, I could only suspect, I could do nothing else. I have feared rather than believed--nor that, until very lately. Would it have been kind, or wise, or right to have staid away altogether, when, as you know, I constantly meet her at our little Club? Was I to say, 'Miss Hope, I see you love me, but I do not love you?' And what right had I to hint the same thing by my actions, at the cost of utter misapprehension and pain to her? Mrs. Simcoe, I do love Hope Wayne too tenderly, and respect her too truly, not to try to protect her against the sting of her own womanly pride. And so I have not staid away. I have not avoided a woman in whom I must always have so deep and peculiar an interest, I have been friend and almost father, and never by a whisper even, by a look, by a possible hint, have I implied any thing more."

His voice trembled as he spoke. He had no right to be silent any longer, and as he finished Mrs. Simcoe took his hand.

"Forgive me! I love her so dearly--and I too am a woman."

She sank upon the sofa as she spoke, and covered her face for a little while. The tears stole quietly down her cheeks. Lawrence Newt stood by her sadly, for his mind was deeply perplexed. They both remained for some time without speaking, until Mrs. Simcoe asked,

"What can we do?"

Lawrence Newt shook his head doubtfully.

They were silent again. At length Mrs. Simcoe said:

"I will do it."

"What?" asked Lawrence.

"What I have been meaning to do for a long, long time," replied the other. "I will tell her the story."

An indefinable expression settled upon Lawrence Newt's face as she spoke.

"Has she never asked?" he inquired.

"Often; but I have always avoided telling."

"It had better be done. It is the only way. But I hoped it would never be necessary. God bless us all!"

He moved toward the door when he had finished, but not until he had shaken her warmly by the hand.

"You will come as before?" she said.

"Of course, there will not be the slightest change on my part. And, Mrs.

Simcoe, remember that next week, certainly, I shall meet Miss Hope at Miss Amy Waring's. Our first meeting had better be there, so before then please--"

He bowed and went out. As he passed the library door he involuntarily looked in. There sat Hope Wayne, reading; but as she heard him she raised the head of golden hair, the dewy cheeks, the thoughtful brow, and as she bowed to him the clear blue eyes smiled the words her tongue uttered--

"Good-by, Mr. Newt, good-by!"

The words followed him out of the door and down the street. The air rang with them every where. The people he passed seemed to look at him as if they were repeating them. Distant echoes caught them up and whispered them. He heard no noise of carriages, no loud city hum; he only heard, fainter and fainter, softer and softer, sadder and sadder, and ever following on, "Good-by, Mr. Newt, good-by!"

CHAPTER LXXIII.

THE BELCH PLATFORM.

"My dear Newt, as a friend who has the highest respect for you, and the firmest faith in your future, I am sure you will allow me to say one thing."

"Oh! certainly, my dear Belch; say two," replied Abel, with the utmost suavity, as he sat at table with General Belch.

"I have no peculiar ability, I know," continued the other, "but I have, perhaps, a little more experience than you. We old men, you know, always plume ourselves upon experience, which we make do duty for all the virtues and talents."

"And it is trained for that service by being merely a synonym for a knowledge of all the sins and rascalities," said Abel, smiling, as he blew rings of smoke and passed the decanter to General Belch.

"True," replied the other; "very true. I see, my dear Newt, that you have had your eyes and your mind open. And since we are going to act together--since, in fact, we are interested in the same plans--"

"And principles," interrupted Abel, laying his head back, and looking with half-closed eyes at the vanishing smoke.

"Oh yes, I was coming to that--in the same plans and principles, it is well that we should understand each other perfectly."

General Belch paused, looked at Abel, and took snuff.

"I think we do already," replied Abel.

"Still there are one or two points to which I would call your attention.

One is, that you can not be too careful of what you say, in regard to its bearing upon the party; and the other is, a general rule that the Public is an ass, but you must never let it know you think so. If there is one thing which the party has practically proved, it is that the people have no will of their own, but are sheep in the hands of the shepherd."

The General took snuff again.

"The Public, then, is an ass and a sheep?" inquired Abel.

"Yes," said the General, "an ass in capacity, and in preference of a thistle diet; a sheep in gregarious and stupid following. You say 'Ca, ca, ca,' when you want a cow to follow you; and you say 'Glorious old party,' and 'Intelligence of the people,' and 'Preference of truth to victory,' and so forth, when you want the people to follow you."

"An ass, a sheep, and a cow," said Abel. "To what other departments of natural history do the people belong, General?"

"Adders," returned Belch, sententiously.

"How so?" asked Abel, amused.