into the sack, and
think!"

"Yes," she answered blandly, an affirmative that caused him some
astonishment, for he had struck at once to the farthest end of his
suspicions.

"He feels as I do about the Italian Schools," said Emilia. "He wishes me
to owe my learning to him. He says it will make him happy, and I thought
so too." She threw in a "then."

Wilfrid looked moodily into the opposite hedge.

"Did he name the day for your going?" he asked presently, little
anticipating another "Yes": but it came: and her rather faltering manner
showed her to be conscious too that the word was getting to be a black
one to him.

"Did you say you would go?"

"I did."

Question and answer crossed like two rapiers.

Wilfrid jumped up.

"The smell of this tree's detestable," he said, glancing at the shadowing
hawthorn.

Emilia rose quietly, plucked a flower off the tree, and put it in her
bosom.

Their way was down a green lane and across long meadow-paths dim in the
moonlight. A nightingale was heard on this side and on that. Overhead
they had a great space of sky with broken cloud full of the glory of the
moon. The meadows dipped to a brook, slenderly spanned by a plank. Then
there was an ascent through a cornfield to a copse. Rounding this they
had sight of Brookfield. But while they were yet at the brook, Wilfrid
said, "When is it you're going to Italy?"

In return he had an eager look, so that he was half-ashamed to add, "With
Captain Gambier, I mean." He was suffering, and by being brutal he
expected to draw balm on himself; nor was he deceived.

Emilia just then gave him her hand to be led over, and answered, as she
neared him, "I am never to leave you."

"You never shall!" Wilfrid caught her in his arms, quite conquered by
her, proud of her. He reflected with a loving rapture that her manner at
that moment was equal to any lady's; and the phantom of her with her hand
out, and her frank look, and trustful footing, while she spoke those
words, kept on advancing to him all the way to Brookfield, at the same
time that the sober reality murmured at his elbow.

Love, with his accustomed cunning, managed thus to lift her out of the
mire and array her in his golden dress to idealize her, as we say.
Reconciled for the hour were the contesting instincts in the nature of
this youth the adoration of feminine refinement and the susceptibility to
sensuous impressions. But Emilia walked with a hero: the dream of all her
da