I should see you again, I should meet you in this
way, Miss Wayne!"

Pleased, still weak and trembling, pale and flushed by turns, Hope
listened to him.

"Where _can_ I see you?" he continued; "certainly your grandfather was
unkind--"

Hope shook her head slowly. Abel watched every movement--every
look--every fluctuating change of manner and color, as if he knew
its most hidden meaning.

"I can see you nowhere but at home," she answered.

He did not reply. She stood silent. She wished he would speak. The
silence was dreadful. She could not bear it.

"I am very sorry," said she, in a whisper, her eyes fastened upon the
ground, her hands playing with her handkerchief.

"I hope you are," he said, quietly, with a tone of sadness, not of
reproach. There was another painful pause.

"I hope so, because I am going away," said Abel.

"Where are you going?"

"Home."

"When?"

"In a few weeks."

"Where is your home?"

"In New York."

It was very much to the point. Yet both of them wanted to say so much
more; and neither of them dared!

"Miss Hope!" whispered Abel.

Hope heard the musical whisper. She perceived the audacity of the
familiarity, but she did not wish it were otherwise. She bent her
head a little lower, as if listening more intently.

"May I see you before I go?"

Hope was silent. Dr. Livingstone relates that when the lion had struck
him with his paw, upon a certain occasion, he lay in a kind of paralysis,
of which he would have been cured in a moment more by being devoured.

"Hope," said Mrs. Simcoe, "the horses will be brought up. We had better
walk home. Here, my dear!"

"I can only see you at home," Hope said, in a low voice, as she rose.

"Then we part here forever," he replied. "I am sorry."

Still there was no reproach; it was only a deep sadness which softened
that musical voice.

"Forever!" he repeated slowly, with low, remorseless music.

Hope Wayne trembled, but he did not see it.

"I am sorry, too," she said, in a hurried whisper, as she moved slowly
toward Mrs. Simcoe. Abel Newt was disappointed.

"Good-by forever, Miss Wayne!" he said. He could not see Hope's paler
face as she heard the more formal address, and knew by it that he was
offended.

"Good-by!" was all he caught as Hope Wayne took Mrs. Simcoe's arm and
walked away.

CHAPTER XIII.

SOCIETY.

Tradition declares that the family of Newt has been uniformly respectable
but honest--so respectable,