The Two Destinies

he library door, and dis

n my room," she said. "Come upstairs, m

ointed to a miniature portrait

half sadly, half playfully. "George! Do you rea

y look; what had I in common with the fair, plump, curly-headed, bright-eyed boy who confronted me in the miniature? The mere sight of the portrait produced the most extraordinary effect on my mind. It stru

rout-fishers throughout Scotland. It was not then the fishing season. No human being was in sight as I took my seat on the bank. The old stone bridge whi

ortrait seemed to reproach me in a merciless language of its

ss. I thought of the wasted years of my

to the ordinary life of man,

no more of love than the insect that now crept over my hand as it lay on the grass. My money, to be sure, would buy me a wif

her since she was ten years old: she was now a woman, as I was a man. Would she know me if we met? The p

ard, and tried to turn the current

aded from the swift-flowing water, and had left it overspread with one monotonous hue of steely gray. The first stars looked down peacefully from the cloudless sky. The first shiverings of the night breeze were audible among the trees, and

k to me in dreams; in her perfected wo

ght b

d laid me helpless among strangers in a strange land. Sickness, which has made itself teacher and friend to many a man, had made itself teacher and friend to me. I looked back with horror at the vices of my youth; at the fruitless after-days

lse which drives us, in certain excited conditions of the mind, to take refuge in movement and change. The remedy had failed; my mind wa

anquil beauty of the last faint light in the western sky, shi

, in the deep stillness of the dying day, I

he black line of the parapet, in the last long rays of the western light. It crossed the bridge. It paused, and crossed back again half

er view of the dress in which the figure was attired. Th

s cast on the bank. She stood with her arms folded

g there at the clo

on one side of her, then on the other. Was she waiting for some person who was to meet

ift-flowing river, set my heart beating quickly and roused me to instant action. I hurried up the rising ground

tation; not knowing how she might receive me when I spoke to her. The moment she turned and faced me, my

ciently marked to show themselves in the fading light. Her hair, for example, seen under the large garden hat that she wore, looked almost as short as the hair of a man; and the color of it was of that dull, lusterless brown hue which is so commonly seen in English women of

you have lost yo

f inquiry in them. She did not appear to be surp

ountry well," I went on. "

her as if it had been a face that she had seen and forgotten again. If she really had this idea, she at once di

my way. I am accustomed to w

the perfection of unaffected grace. She left the bridge on the side by which I had firs

my instinct felt to be something wrong. As I walked away toward the opposite end of the bridge, the doubt began to grow

oncealed behind the first tree which was large enough to hide me, I could command a view of the bridge, and I could fairly count on detecting her, if she returned to the river,

ehind the tree, when the stillness of the twilight hou

any high pitch; its accent was the accent of

have merc

ameless fear crept over me,

move, before I could cry out, before I could eve

headlong down the bank. She sank again, in the moment when I stopped to throw aside my hat and coat and to kick off my

ng, just visible a few inches below the surface of the river. One more stroke, and my left arm was round her; I had her face out of the water. She was insensible. I co

with her down the stream. Some fifty yards lower, the river took a turn round a promontory of land, on which stood a little inn much frequented by anglers in the season. As we approached the place, I made another attempt (again an attempt in vain) to reach the shore. Our last c

nt to direct them. A good fire, warm blankets, hot water in bottles, were all at my disposal. I showed the women myself how to ply the work of revival. They persevered,

"artificial respiration." I was just endeavoring to tell the landlady what I wanted and was just conscious o f a s

ing!" she cried. "What's the

against the sudden sense of faintness that seized on me; I tried to tell the people of the inn what to do. It was useless. I dropped to my knees; my head sunk on the bosom of the woman stre

did we two, who had met as strangers on the fatal bridge, know each other again in the trance? You who have loved and lost - you whose one consolation it has been t