destined that merry night when she had packed
it in her knapsack. With a stern bow her father turned from me to join
her; but she suddenly slipped past him, threw her arms round me, and
kissed me one long passionate kiss.

"Aucassin, be true," she cried, "I will never forget you,--no one shall
come between us;" and then bursting into tears, she buried her face in
her hands and followed her father from the room.

In another moment she had been driven away, and I sat as one stupefied
in the inn window. But a few short minutes ago she had been sitting
merrily prattling by my side, and now I was once more as lonely as if
we had never met. Presently I became conscious in my reverie of a
little crumpled piece of paper on the floor. I picked it up. It was a
little note pencilled in her bedroom at the last moment. "Aucassin,"
it ran, just like her last passionate words, "be true. I will never
forget you. Stay here till I write to you, and oh, write to me soon!--
Your broken-hearted Nicolete."

As I read, I saw her lovely young face, radiant with love and sorrow as
I had last seen it, and pressing the precious little letter to my lips,
I said fervently, "Yes, Nicolete, I will be true."

CHAPTER XII

IN WHICH I REVIEW MY ACTIONS AND RENEW MY RESOLUTIONS

No doubt the youthful reader will have but a poor opinion of me after
the last two chapters. He will think that in the scene with the
Major-General I acted with lamentably little spirit, and that generally
my friend Alastor would have proved infinitely more worthy of the
situation. It is quite true, I confess it. The whole episode was made
for Alastor. Nicolete and he were born for each other. Alas! it is
one of the many drawbacks of experience that it frequently prevents our
behaving with spirit.

I must be content to appeal to the wiser and therefore sadder reader,
of whom I have but a poor opinion if he too fails to understand me.
He, I think, will understand why I didn't promptly assault the
Major-General, seize Nicolete by the waist, thrust her into her
ancestral carriage, haul the coachman from his box, and, seizing the
reins, drive away in triumph before astonishment had time to change
into pursuit. Truly it had been but the work of a moment, and there was
only one consideration which prevented my following this
now-I-call-that-heroic course. It is a consideration I dare hardly
venture to write, and the confession of which will, I know, necessitate
m