doubly safe," she said.

"I have now something to talk to my uncle about, and must leave you."

Flora smiled, and held out her hand to him. He pressed it to his heart.
He knew not what impulse came over him then, but for the first time he
kissed the cheek of the beautiful girl.

With a heightened colour she gently repulsed him. He took a long
lingering look at her as he passed out of the room, and when the door
was closed between them, the sensation he experienced was as if some
sudden cloud had swept across the face of the sun, dimming to a vast
extent its precious lustre.

A strange heaviness came across his spirits, which before had been so
unaccountably raised. He felt as if the shadow of some coming evil was
resting on his soul--as if some momentous calamity was preparing for
him, which would almost be enough to drive him to madness, and
irredeemable despair.

"What can this be," he exclaimed, "that thus oppresses me? What feeling
is this that seems to tell me, I shall never again see Flora
Bannerworth?"

Unconsciously he uttered these words, which betrayed the nature of his
worst forebodings.

"Oh, this is weakness," he then added. "I must fight out against this;
it is mere nervousness. I must not endure it, I will not suffer myself
thus to become the sport of imagination. Courage, courage, Charles
Holland. There are real evils enough, without your adding to them by
those of a disordered fancy. Courage, courage, courage."

CHAPTER XXV.

THE ADMIRAL'S OPINION.--THE REQUEST OF CHARLES.

[Illustration]

Charles then sought the admiral, whom he found with his hands behind
him, pacing to and fro in one of the long walks of the garden, evidently
in a very unsettled state of mind. When Charles appeared, he quickened
his pace, and looked in such a state of unusual perplexity that it was
quite ridiculous to observe him.

"I suppose, uncle, you have made up your mind thoroughly by this time?"

"Well, I don't know that."

"Why, you have had long enough surely to think over it. I have not
troubled you soon."

"Well, I cannot exactly say you have, but, somehow or another, I don't
think very fast, and I have an unfortunate propensity after a time of
coming exactly round to where I began."

"Then, to tell the truth, uncle, you can come to no sort of conclusion."

"Only one."

"And what may that be?"

"Why, that you are right in one thing, Charles, which is, that having
sent a challenge to this