BY THE SEA. 35
in a low voice. ‘A good woman loved him, and
he was not ashamed to love her in return.”
He was not acting; the words were uttered involuntarily. Then he became conscious of: their import, and gave one quick glance to see what effect they had upon her.
The color rose higher in her cheeks, and a brighter glory flashed into her splendid eyes as she answered,
“Reward enough for the failure of his youth, or what seemed failure.”
“Reward enough!’ Grafton repeated, in a voice so deep and earnest, that Miss Annesly started. He was too thoroughly skilled in women’s ways not to perceive that she felt they had strayed further in their talk than she had meant to go.
“We are getting as poetical as Mrs. Brown- ing herself,” she said, with a gay laugh.
“It is a comfort to me to know that I have enough left in me to appreciate the beautiful and true,” he said, earnestly.
“I could have told you that you had,’ she replied, with perfect calmness, but evidently meaning what she said.
“That is not just a pretty saying.”
“Just the truth—nothing more. But——”
“Don’t hesitate—pray go on.” :
“Certainly. I only hesitated for fear you would think me impertinent.”
“As if I could think that!”
“Ah! now you are taking refuge in pretty sayings; that is to avoid hearing the truth.”
‘Then tell me for a punishment.”
“Thanks; but I have too mueh compassion on poor human nature to have any desire to play Nemesis.”
“Then tell me as a warning.”
“As if anybody ever heeded warnings,” laughed she.
“Don’t laugh!” exclaimed Grafton, so irri- tably that it was evident he was not doing theatricals. ‘I want you to finish your sen- tence. But what?”
“I meant to say that it rested with yourself whether you would much longer have the power, even of feeling the beautiful and true.”
‘How am I to keep the faculty?”
“Ah! my wisdom goes no further than the; warning—you must find out the way yourself. Now I shall sing to you.”
She seated herself at the piano, and sang in in her touching mezzo soprano some lovely words of Tennyson’s, which were wedded to music worthy of them, one could not say more.
Grafton Warner lay still, his face shaded by his hand.
The strain ceased. Maud sat with her fingers idly straying over the keys; she heard Grafton murmur,
“But the tender grace of a day that is dead, Can never come back to me,”
She rose, paused for an instant by the sofa.
“While this life lasts no man need ever echo that complaint,” she said, softly.
Before Grafton could look up, she had passed out of the apartment.
He lay there with his senses in a whirl. Did her words mean hope? That it was possible, softened him more than anything else could have done. His whole life came in review be- fore him, as he lay there; his poor, wasted life, that heaven must have meant for better uses, since heaven gave it!
I believe, as firmly as I believe I live, that, after a man begins on the downward _ path, there are certain seasons offered, when, if he chooses to listen to the inner voice, that higher Power, which seeks to guide us, will give aid. It was a moment like that which Grafton Warner had reached now.
There should be a change, he said to himself. If this woman loved him—oh! he dared not think of that! Even if he must go on alone, , there should be a change.
That evening they were all down by the sea- shore, to watch the moonlight on the surf. Grafton was so much better, that the women permitted him to go, on condition that he would wear more wraps than anything masculine ever put on of his own free will.
Grafton and Maud Annesly were sitting under a sort of rustic arbor, that had been put up during the summer for the accommodation ot those who wished to watch the bathers—the rest of the party were straying about on the sands; old Mrs. Annesly, at a little distance, was making sober Richard Roylston laugh like a maniac at one of her irresistible stories.
Gradually, as they sat in the glory of the moonlight, with the white surf beating its cease- less complaint at their feet, Grafton led the conversation back to the talk of the morning. Maud Annesly showed no disposition to shrink from the perilous ground.
He talked more truthfully than he had done to any human being for years. There was a spell on his soul, which seemed to pull him on in spite of himself; and from the very fact that it was truth, his words impressed and obliged her to listen.
He told her what his life had been, how a new hope had suddenly sprung up in his soul; and as he talked and felt that she was moved,
