n with grief. She
took him by the coat, and then, by an impulse which she seemed unable to
resist, threw one arm about his neck, and raised her face to his until
their lips all but touched, and their eyes met in a steadfast gaze.

"Hugh," she said, passionately, "are you sure that you love me well
enough to think of me when I am gone?--are you quite, quite sure?"

"Yes, yes; be sure of that," he said, gently.

He disengaged her arm.

"And will you come and fetch me after--after--"

She could not say the word. He smiled and answered, "Why, yes, yes."

Her fingers trembled and clung together; her head fell; her cheeks were
aglow.

"Why, of course." He smiled again, as if in deprecation of so much
child-like earnestness; then put his arm about the girl's shoulder,
dropped his voice to a tone of mingled compassion and affection, and
said, as he lifted the brightening face to his, "There, there--now go
off and make ready."

The girl brushed her tears away vigorously, and looked half ashamed and
half enchanted.

"I'm going."

"That's a good little girl."

How the sunshine came back at the sound of his words!

"Good-bye for the present, Mercy--only for the present, you know."

But how the shadow pursued the sunshine after all!

Hugh saw the tears gathering again in the lucent eyes, and came back a
step.

"There--a smile--just one little smile!" She smiled through her tears.
"There--there--that's a dear little Mercy. Good-day; good-bye."

Hugh turned on his heel and walked sharply away. As he passed out
through the gate he could not help observing that the cat from the foot
of the chestnut-tree was walking stealthily off, with something like a
dawning smile on its whiskered face, and the brush of the squirrel
between its teeth.

Hugh Ritson had gained his end, and yet he felt more crushed than at the
darkest moment of defeat. He had conquered his own manhood; and now he
crept away from the scene of his triumph with a sense of utter
abasement. When he had talked with Mr. Bonnithorne it was with a
feeling of the meanness of the folly in which he was involved; and if
any sentiment touching the girl's situation was strong upon him it was
closely bound up with a personal view of the degradation that might come
of a man's humiliating unwisdom. The very conventionality of his folly
had irked him. But its cowardice was now uppermost. That a man should
enter into warfare with a woman on unequal terms, and win by ca