me."

He sprang before her in the narrow path.

"You must hear what I have to say before you go," he said curtly. "We are
not likely to meet again for some time if we part now. I intend to leave
England."

She looked at him at those words, but he was at a loss to divine the
meaning of the look.

"You are leaving England?" A quick ear would have caught a strange note in
her soft voice. "Oh, but you cannot--you have responsibilities."

"Are you thinking of the title, and your father's money?" he observed,
glancing at her curiously. "What do you know about it, Sisily?"

"I have heard of nothing but the title ever since I can remember," she
replied.

"I learnt for the first time this afternoon that I was brought down here
to rob you," he said gloomily.

"I am glad for your sake if you are to have it--the money," she simply
replied.

He answered with a bitter, almost vengeful aspect.

"I would not take the money or the title, if they ever came to me. They
should be yours. I will show them. I will let them know that they cannot
do what they like with me." He brought out this obscure threat in a savage
voice. "If I had only known--if I had guessed that your father--" He
ceased abruptly, with a covert glance, like one fearing he had said too
much.

She kept her eyes fixed on the lengthening shadows around the rocks.

"Do not take it so much to heart," she timidly counselled. "It is nothing
to me--the title or the money. They made my mother's life a misery. My
father was always cruel to her because of them, I do not know why. It is
in his nature to be cruel, I think. He has a heart of granite, like these
rocks. I hate him!" She brought out the last words in a sudden burst of
passion which startled him.

"What nonsense it all is!" he exclaimed, suddenly changing his tone. "All
this talk about a title which may never be revived. Let them have it
between them, and the money too. Sisily, I love you, dear, love you better
than all the titles and money in the world. I am not worthy of you, but I
will try to be. Let us go Sway and start life ... just our two selves."

"I cannot." She stood in front of him with downcast gaze, and then raised
her eyes to his.

Had he been as experienced in the ways of her sex as he believed himself
to be, he would have read more in her elusive glance than her words.

"You may be sorry if you do not," he said, with a sudden access of male
brutality. "There are reasons--reasons I canno