offer us refreshment, and over the table they fell to gossiping.

"Westover's not the place it was," said Murray, sipping his flip
disconsolately,--"not the place it was while Miss Evelyn was alive. There
was no other like it in Virginia then. Why, it was always full of gay
company, and the colonel kept a nigger down there at the gate to invite
in every traveler who passed. But all that's changed, and has been these
six year."

Mr. Fontaine nodded over his tea.

"Yes," he said, "Evelyn's death was a great blow to her father."

"You may well say that, sir," assented Murray, with a sigh. "He was never
the same man after. He used to sit there at that window and watch her in
the garden, after they came back from London, and every day he saw her
whiter and thinner. At night, after she was safe abed, I have seen him
walking up and down over there along the river, sobbing like a baby. And
when she died, he was like a man dazed, thinking, perhaps, it was he who
had killed her."

"I know," nodded Mr. Fontaine. "I was here." There was a moment's
silence. I was bursting with questions, but I did not dare to speak.

"The young master took him back to London after that," went on Murray,
"hoping that a change would do him good and take his mind off Miss
Evelyn, but I doubt he'll ever get over it. While they were in London,
Sir Godfrey Kneller painted him and Miss Evelyn. Would you like to see
the pictures, sir?"