She was sitting by the fire in the library, alone in the dusk save for Randie's company, when her cousin came in and found her.
"Why, Belle, what are you doing all alone in the dark?" he exclaimed. "I almost thought the room was empty."
"I have been thinking," she said, with a sigh.
"Your thoughts could not have been over-pleasant, I should think, by that sigh," said Leonard, coming over to the hearth, and drawing the logs together. "There's a cheerful blaze for you. Don't give way to sad thoughts on the first day of the year, Belle: it's a bad beginning."
"I have been thinking of your dear mother, Leonard: _my_ mother, for she has been more to me than one mother in a hundred is to her daughter. She is with us to-day--a part of our lives--very frail and feeble, but still our own. Where will she be next New Year's day?"
"Ah, Belle, that's a bad look out for both of us," answered Leonard, seating himself in his mother's empty chair. "I'm afraid she won't last out the year that begins to-day. But she has seemed brighter and happier lately, hasn't she?"
"Yes, I think she has been happier," said Christabel.
His cousin did not answer him. She sat with her face bent over her dog, hiding her tears on Randie's sleek black head.
"I think I know why the mother has been so tranquil in her mind lately, Belle," said Leonard, with unusual earnestness, "and I think you know just as well as I do. She has seen you and me more friendly together--more cousinly--and she has looked forward to the fulfilment of an old wish and dream of hers. She has looked for the speedy realization of that wish, Belle, although six months ago it seemed hopeless. She wants to see the two people she loves best on earth united, before she is taken away. It would make the close of her life happy, if she could see my happiness secure. I believe you know that, Belle."
"Yes, I know that it is so. But that can never be."
"That is a hard saying, Christabel. Half a year ago I asked you a question, and you said no. Many a man in my position would have been too proud to run the risk of a second refusal. He would have gone away in a huff and found comfort somewhere else. But I knew that there was only one woman in the world who could make me happy, and I waited for her. You must own that I have been patient, have I not, Belle?"