by
the thick brown beard, a face that would have looked well under a
lifted helmet--such a face as the scared Saxons must have seen among
the bold followers of William the Norman, when those hardy Norse
warriors ran amuck in Dover town.

"Not to my knowledge," answered this audacious villain, in his lightest
tone. "I am not very geographical. But I should think it was rather out
of the way."

"Then you and Lady Mabel have changed your plans?" said Vixen,
trembling very much, but trying desperately to be as calmly commonplace
as a young lady talking to an ineligible partner at a ball. "You are
not going to the north of Europe?"

"Lady Mabel and I have changed our plans. We are not going to the north
of Europe."

"Oh!"

"In point of fact, we are not going anywhere."

"But you have come to Jersey. That is part of your tour, I suppose?"

"Do not be too hasty in your suppositions, Miss Tempest. _I_ have come
to Jersey--I am quite willing to admit as much as that."

"And Lady Mabel? She is with you, of course?"

"Not the least bit in the world. To the best of my knowledge, Lady
Mabel--I beg her pardon--Lady Mallow is now on her way the
fishing-grounds of Connemara with her husband."

"Rorie!"

What a glad happy cry that was! It was like a gush of sudden music from
a young blackbird's throat on a sunny spring morning. The crimson dye
had faded from Violet's cheeks a minute ago and left her deadly pale.
Now the bright colour rushed back again, the happy brown eyes, the
sweet blush-rose lips, broke into the gladdest smile that ever Rorie
had seen upon her face. He held out his arms, he clasped her to his
breast, where she rested unresistingly, infinitely happy. Great Heaven!
how the whole world and herself had become transformed in this moment
of unspeakable bliss! Rorie, the lost, the surrendered, was her own
true lover after all!

"Yes, dear, I obeyed you. You were hard and cruel to me that night in
the fir plantation; but I knew in my heart of hearts that you were
wise, and honest, and true; and I made up my mind that I would keep the
engagement entered upon beside my mother's death-bed. Loving or
unloving I would marry Mabel Ashbourne, and do my duty to her, and go
down to my grave with the character of a good and faithful husband, as
many a man has done who never loved his wife. So I held on, Vixen--yes,
I will call you by the old pet name now: henceforward you are mine, and
I shall call you what I like--I