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262 WILD MARGARET.
she opened the door she turned and looked at him—a
steady, resolute look.
‘I will remember,’’ she said, ‘‘I will be ready when |
you come!” .
CHAPTER XXX.
TEN minutes after Lottie fell senseless beside the stone
steps of the Palace Augustus, a slight, girlish figure came
quickly down the street. It wasdressed in black, the only
spot of relief being the fur lining of the hood which al-
most concealed her face. Though she was quite alone, she
walked with a fearless and confident bearing, like one
whose safety was insured. As she came near the gateway
of the palace, a man, bearing the unmistakable signs of a
footpad, approached her stealthily, but after a glance at
the half-shrouded face, he made a bow, and spreading out
his hands toward her, with respectful and almost awed
deprecation, stood aside to let her pass.
Margaret, for she it-was, returned the salutation with a
gentle inclination of her head, and went on her way.
As she walked along in the starlight, a strange feeling of
peacefulness, that for all its serenity had something of
elation in it, pervaded her. She had just come from visit-
ing a child down with the fever, which is as characteristic
of Naples as its bay, or its volcano, and the blessings’
which the mother of the little one had called down upon
Margaret’s head, seemed to have borne fruit. _ .
To-night, as she looked up at the stars, she could bring
_ herself to think of Blair with a feeling of forgiveness and
tenderness which she had not, as yet, been capable of. .
In this life he could never be her own again, never;
' but perhaps in that mysterious after-life toward which
they were all drifting, he would, insome way, come back
to her.. That he had loved her, even while sinning
against her, she felt convinced; and to-night, as she
walked through the silent streets, his face came before
her, and his voice rose in her memory with a strange
distinctness. In fancy she was back again at Leyton
Court and at Appleford, and a reflection of these times,
in all their glorious coloring of happiness, fell upon her
spirit in the dark street, and illuminated it with a curious
sadness that had a tinge of joy in it.
_ ‘Oh, Blair, my love, my love!” she murmured, look-
Ing up at the stars, very much as he had done about |
an hour before, ‘‘we shall never meet again here on
earth, but who knows what may await us up there?”
As she lowered her eyes with a gentle sigh, she saw the