for me; I am sufficient guard upon myself. Even while I speak, I
think,--yes, I have thought of the very spot. You remember that hollow
oak at the bottom of the dell, in which Guy St. John, the Cavalier, is
said to have hid himself from Fairfax's soldiers? Every Monday I will
leave a letter in that hollow; every Tuesday you can search for it, and
leave your own. This is but once a week; there is no risk here."

Mainwaring's conscience still smote him, but he had not the strength to
resist the energy of Lucretia. The force of her character seized upon
the weak part of his own,--its gentleness, its fear of inflicting
pain, its reluctance to say "No,"--that simple cause of misery to the
over-timid. A few sentences more, full of courage, confidence, and
passion, on the part of the woman, of constraint and yet of soothed and
grateful affection on that of the man, and the affianced parted.

Mainwaring had already given orders to have his trunks sent to him at
his father's; and, a hardy pedestrian by habit, he now struck across the
park, passed the dell and the hollow tree, commonly called "Guy's Oak,"
and across woodland and fields golden with ripening corn, took his way
to the town, in the centre of which, square, solid, and imposing,
stood the respectable residence of his bustling, active, electioneering
father.

Lucretia's eye followed a form as fair as ever captivated maiden's
glance, till it was out of sight; and then, as she emerged from the
shade of the cedars into the more open space of the garden, her usual
thoughtful composure was restored to her steadfast countenance. On the
terrace, she caught sight of Vernon, who had just quitted his own room,
where he always breakfasted alone, and who was now languidly stretched
on a bench, and basking in the sun. Like all who have abused life,
Vernon was not the same man in the early part of the day. The spirits
that rose to temperate heat the third hour after noon, and expanded into
glow when the lights shone over gay carousers, at morning were flat and
exhausted. With hollow eyes and that weary fall of the muscles of the
cheeks which betrays the votary of Bacchus,--the convivial three-bottle
man,--Charley Vernon forced a smile, meant to be airy and impertinent,
to his pale lips, as he rose with effort, and extended three fingers to
his cousin.

"Where have you been hiding? Catching bloom from the roses? You have the
prettiest shade of colour,--just enough; not a hue too mu