am to-day'--

'That day will never come,' broke in Gladys quietly. 'But if you will
take me to Australia with you, Walter, I am ready to go this very day.'

His face grew dusky red, his eyes shone, he looked at her as if he
sought to read her soul.

'Do you know what you are saying, Gladys? If you go, it can only be in
one way--as my wife.'

'Well?'

She took a long breath, but was allowed to say no more until a long time
after, when she raised her face from her lover's breast, and demanded
that he should take her home.

'It is an awful thing we have done, Gladys,' he said, touching her dear
head for the twentieth time, and looking down into her eyes, which were
luminous with the light of love,--'an awful thing for me, at least. We
shall have to flee the country, and they will say I have abducted the
heiress of Bourhill.'

'Oh, do! Run off with me, as the Red Reiver and all these nice,
interesting sort of people used to do long ago. Let us abscond, and not
tell a single living soul, except the faithful Teen.'

But Walter shook his head.

'It is what I should like to do above everything, but I must resist the
temptation. No, my darling; for your sake, everything must be most
scrupulously conventional, if a little hurried. I shall pay your
guardian a visit to-morrow morning, which will somewhat astonish him.'

Gladys looked at him with a sudden access of admiration. To hear him
speak in that calm, masterful tone pleased her as nothing else could
have done.

'But you won't let them frighten you, and abscond without me? That would
be too mean,' she said saucily.

Walter made no verbal reply, and so, hand in hand, they turned to leave
the moonlit woods, and there was a look on the face of Walter such as
you see on the faces of reverent worshippers who have found rest and
peace to their souls.

'Poor Liz!' he said under his breath, as he uplifted his eyes to the
clear sky, as if seeking to penetrate its mystery, and find whither that
wayward soul had fled.

Gladys laid her soft cheek against his arm, and silence fell upon them
again. But the heart of each was full to the uttermost, and they asked
no more.

It was, indeed, the world well lost for love.

* * * * *

On the morning of the ninth of October, this announcement appeared in
the marriage list of the _Glasgow Herald_, and was read and discussed at
many breakfast-tables:--

'At Bourhill, Ayrshire, on the 8th instant