as already falling out of
hearing, she added, 'I thought you were entirely breaking with your old
life.'

'No, indeed,' said Leonard, turning to walk with her in the paths; 'I
am leaving the place where it is most impossible to live in.'

'This has been a place of great, over-great trial, I know,' said Ethel,
'but I do not ask you to stay in it.'

'My word is my word,' said Leonard, snapping little boughs off the
laurels as he walked.

'A hasty word ought not to be kept.'

His face looked rigid, and he answered not.

'Leonard,' she said, 'I have been very unhappy about you, for I see you
doing wilfully wrong, and entering a place of temptation in a dangerous
spirit.'

'I have given my word,' repeated Leonard.

'O, Leonard, it is pride that is speaking, not the love of truth and
constancy.'

'I never defend myself,' said Leonard.

Ethel felt deeply the obduracy and pride of these answers; her eyes
filled with tears, and her hopes failed.

Perhaps Leonard saw the pain he was giving, for he softened, and said,
'Miss May, I have thought it over, and I cannot go back. I know I was
carried away by passion at the first moment, and I was willing to make
amends. I was rejected, as you know. Was it fit that we should go on
living together?'

'I do not ask you to live together.'

'When he reproached me with the cost of my maintenance, and threatened
me with the mill if I lost the scholarship, which he knew I could not
get, I said I would abide by those words. I do abide by them.'

'There is no reason that you should. Why should you give up all your
best and highest hopes, because you cannot forgive your brother?'

'Miss May, if I lived with you and the Doctor, I could have such aims.
Henry has taken care to make them sacrilege for me. I shall never be
fit now, and there's an end of it.'

'You might--'

'No, no, no! A school, indeed! I should be dismissed for licking the
boys before a week was out! Besides, I want the readiest way to get on
in the world; I must take care of my sisters; I don't trust one moment
to Henry's affection for any of them. This is no home for me, and it
soon may be no home for them!' and the boy's eyes were full of tears,
though his voice struggled for firmness and indifference.

'I am very sorry for you, Leonard,' said Ethel, much more
affectionately, as she felt herself nearer her friend of Coombe. 'I am
glad you have some better motives, but I do not see how you will be