be all I should
to you, I will gladly learn, because I never needed love as I do now.
Geoffrey, shall I stay or go?"

"Stay, Sylvia. Ah, thank God for this!"

If she had ever hoped that Moor would forget her for his own sake, she
now saw how vain such hope would have been, and was both touched and
troubled by the knowledge of her supremacy which that hour gave her. She
was as much the calmer as friendship is than love, and was the first to
speak again, still standing there content although her words expressed a
doubt.

"Are you very sure you want me? Are you not tired of the thorn that has
fretted you so long? Remember, I am so young, so ignorant, and unfitted
for a wife. Can I give you real happiness? make home what you would have
it? and never see in your face regret that some wiser, better woman was
not in my place?"

"I am sure of myself, and satisfied with you, as you are no wiser, no
better, nothing but my Sylvia."

"It is very sweet to hear you say that with such a look. I do not
deserve it but I will. Is the pain I once gave you gone now, Geoffrey?"

"Gone forever."

"Then I am satisfied, and will begin my life anew by trying to learn
well the lesson my kind master is to teach me."

When Moor went that night Sylvia followed him, and as they stood
together this happy moment seemed to recall that other sad one, for
taking her hands again he asked, smiling now--

"Dear, is it good night or good by?"

"It is good by and come to-morrow."

CHAPTER XI.

WOOING.

Nothing could have been more unlike than the two pairs of lovers who
from April to August haunted Mr. Yule's house. One pair was of the
popular order, for Mark was tenderly tyrannical, Jessie adoringly
submissive, and at all hours of the day they were to be seen making
tableaux of themselves. The other pair were of the peculiar order,
undemonstrative and unsentimental, but quite as happy. Moor knew his
power, but used it generously, asking little while giving much. Sylvia
as yet found nothing to regret, for so gently was she taught, the lesson
could not seem hard, and when her affection remained unchanged in kind,
although it deepened in degree, she said within herself--

"That strong and sudden passion was not true love, but an unwise,
unhappy delusion of my own. I should be glad that it is gone, because I
know I am not fit to be Warwick's wife. This quiet feeling which
Geoffrey inspires must be a safer love for me, and I should be