ason for pursuit, where no other argument exists.

"And you do love me?" said the senhora, with a soft, low whisper that most
unaccountably suggested anything but comfort to me.

"Love you, Inez? By this kiss--I'm in an infernal scrape!" said I,
muttering this last half of my sentence to myself.

"And you'll never be jealous again?"

"Never, by all that's lovely!--your own sweet lips. That's the very last
thing to reproach me with."

"And you promise me not to mind that foolish boy? For, after all, you know,
it was mere flirtation,--if even that."

"I'll never think of him again," said I, while my brain was burning to make
out her meaning. "But, dearest, there goes the trumpet-call--"

"And, as for Pedro Mascarenhas, I never liked him."

"Are you quite sure, Inez?"

"I swear it!--so no more of him. Gonzales Cordenza--I've broke with him
long since. So that you see, dearest Frederic--"

"Frederic!" said I, starting almost to my feet with, amazement, while she
continued:--

"I'm your own,--all your own!"

"Oh, the coquette, the heartless jilt!" groaned I, half-aloud.

"And O'Malley, Inez, poor Charley!--what of him?"

"Poor thing! I can't help him. But he's such a puppy, the lesson may do him
good."

"But perhaps he loved you, Inez?"

"To be sure he did; I wished him to do so,--I can't bear not to be loved.
But, Frederic, tell me, may I trust you,--will you keep faithful to me?"

"Sweetest Inez! by this last kiss I swear that such as I kneel before you
now, you'll ever find me."

A foot upon the gravel-walk without now called me to my feet; I sprang
towards the door, and before Inez had lifted her head from the sofa, I had
reached the garden. A figure muffled in a cavalry cloak passed near me, but
without noticing me, and the next moment I had cleared the paling, and was
hurrying towards the stable, where I had ordered Mike to be in waiting.

The faint streak of dull pink which announces the coming day stretched
beneath the dark clouds of the night, and the chill air of the morning was
already stirring in the leaves.

As I passed along by a low beech hedge which skirted the avenue, I was
struck by the sound of voices near me. I stopped to listen, and soon
detected in one of the speakers my friend Mickey Free; of the other I was
not long in ignorance.

"Love you, is it, bathershin? It's worship you, adore you, my
darling,--that's the word! There, acushla, don't cry; dry your eyes--Oh,
murther, it'