toward the south?'
I supposed she was repeating it aloud from her manuscript, but father
knew better and swung round upon her. 'Do you presume, then, to know
whither or how far Jack will fly?' he demanded. She turned a queer
look upon him, not flinching as I expected, and 'I shall see him,'
she answered, using Balaam's words; 'I shall see him, but not now: I
shall behold him, but not nigh.' And with that she dropped her head
and went on quietly with her writing. As for father, if you'll
believe me, it simply dumbfounded him; he hadn't a word!"

"And I will tell you why. Once on a time that weak darling stood up
for me to his face. She would not tell me what happened. But I
believe that ever since father has been as nearly afraid of her as of
anyone in the world. . . . And now I want a promise. You say you
have been happy in these talks of ours; and heaven knows I have been
happier than for many a long day. Well, I want you to tell Molly
about me--alone, remember--for of them all she only tried to help me,
and believes in me still."

"Why, of course I shall."

"And," Hetty smiled, "they have no poet among them now. You might
send me some of your verses for a keepsake."

Charles grew suddenly red in the face. "Why--who told you?" he
stammered.

"Oh, my dear," she laughed merrily, "one divines it! the more easily
for having known the temptation."

He had set down his tea-cup and was standing up now, in his young
confusion fingering the sewing she had laid aside.

"What is this you are doing?" he asked, with his eyes on the
baby-linen; and though he uttered the first question that came into
his head, and merely to cover his blushes, as he asked it the truth
came to him, and he blushed more redly than ever.

Hetty blushed too. She saw that he had guessed at length, but she
saw him also clothed in a shining innocence. She felt suddenly that,
though she might love him better, there were privacies she could not
discuss with Charles as with John. And for the moment Charles seemed
to her the more distant and mysterious of the two.

What she answered was--"We shall be following you back to
Lincolnshire in a few days. I am to stay at Louth, in the house
where William has found lodgings for his father--who was born at
Louth, you know, and has now determined to end his days there.
William will not be with me at first; he has to wind up the business
at Lincoln and looks for some unpleasantness, as he has mad