ive my life alone, and being friends with both wrong neither. This is
my decision; in it I believe, by it I will abide, and if it be a just
one God will not let me fail."

"I submit, Sylvia; I can still hope and wait."

So humbly he said it, so heartily he meant it, she felt that his love
was as indomitable as Warwick's will, and the wish that it were right
and possible to accept and reward it woke with all its old intensity. It
was not possible; and though her heart grew heavier within her, Sylvia
answered steadily--

"No, Geoffrey, do not hope, do not wait; forgive me and forget me. Go
abroad as you proposed; travel far and stay long away. Change your life,
and learn to see in me only the friend I once was and still desire to
be."

"I will go, will stay till you recall me, but while you live your life
alone I shall still hope and wait."

This invincible fidelity, so patient, so persistent, impressed the
listener like a prophecy, disturbed her conviction, arrested the words
upon her lips and softened them.

"It is not for one so unstable as myself to say, 'I shall never change.'
I do not say it, though I heartily believe it, but will leave all to
time. Surely I may do this; may let separation gently, gradually
convince you or alter me; and as the one return which I can make for all
you have given me, let this tie between us remain unbroken for a little
longer. Take this poor consolation with you; it is the best that I can
offer now. Mine is the knowledge that however I may thwart your life in
this world, there is a beautiful eternity in which you will forget me
and be happy."

She gave him comfort, but he robbed her of her own as he drew her to
him, answering with a glance brighter than any smile--

"Love is immortal, dear, and even in the 'beautiful eternity' I shall
still hope and wait."

* * * * *

How soon it was all over! the return to separate homes, the disclosures,
and the storms; the preparations for the solitary voyage, the last
charges and farewells.

Mark would not, and Prue could not, go to see the traveller off; the
former being too angry to lend his countenance to what he termed a
barbarous banishment, the latter, being half blind with crying, stayed
to nurse Jessie, whose soft heart was nearly broken at what seemed to
her the most direful affliction under heaven.

But Sylvia and her father followed Moor till his foot left the soil, and
still lingered on the