d that offered it,
and looked into her face. She let me hold it for a moment, and I saw a
flash of ecstatic brilliance in her eye, a glow of glad excitement on her
face--I thought my hour of victory was come--but instantly a painful
recollection seemed to flash upon her; a cloud of anguish darkened her
brow, a marble paleness blanched her cheek and lip; there seemed a moment
of inward conflict, and, with a sudden effort, she withdrew her hand, and
retreated a step or two back.

'Now, Mr. Markham,' said she, with a kind of desperate calmness, 'I must
tell you plainly that I cannot do with this. I like your company,
because I am alone here, and your conversation pleases me more than that
of any other person; but if you cannot be content to regard me as a
friend--a plain, cold, motherly, or sisterly friend--I must beg you to
leave me now, and let me alone hereafter: in fact, we must be strangers
for the future.'

'I will, then--be your friend, or brother, or anything you wish, if you
will only let me continue to see you; but tell me why I cannot be
anything more?'

There was a perplexed and thoughtful pause.

'Is it in consequence of some rash vow?'

'It is something of the kind,' she answered. 'Some day I may tell you,
but at present you had better leave me; and never, Gilbert, put me to the
painful necessity of repeating what I have just now said to you,' she
earnestly added, giving me her hand in serious kindness. How sweet, how
musical my own name sounded in her mouth!

'I will not,' I replied. 'But you pardon this offence?'

'On condition that you never repeat it.'

'And may I come to see you now and then?'

'Perhaps--occasionally; provided you never abuse the privilege.'

'I make no empty promises, but you shall see.'

'The moment you do our intimacy is at an end, that's all.'

'And will you always call me Gilbert? It sounds more sisterly, and it
will serve to remind me of our contract.'

She smiled, and once more bid me go; and at length I judged it prudent to
obey, and she re-entered the house and I went down the hill. But as I
went the tramp of horses' hoofs fell on my ear, and broke the stillness
of the dewy evening; and, looking towards the lane, I saw a solitary
equestrian coming up. Inclining to dusk as it was, I knew him at a
glance: it was Mr. Lawrence on his grey pony. I flew across the field,
leaped the stone fence, and then walked down the lane to meet him. On
seeing me, he sudde