, we would never part."

"Oh, if it were! If I hadn't anything to expect! But, no! My old
grandmother will be sure to leave me everything she has, just out of
spite, when all I want on earth is my liberty, and the love that belongs
to me. How I should like to--"

"To what, Clara?"

"Nothing--only I was thinking how jolly it would be just to tie on my
hat, button my jacket, and go off with you to America, where people
can't die and leave you titles and things; but it is of no use thinking
of such a thing. It would break mamma Rachael's heart; and she needs me
so much."

Hepworth caught his breath. The thought had been in his mind. But for
his sister, I think he would have proposed it.

"Do not tempt me, darling. We cannot abandon her."

"Oh, no," answered Clara, pouting a little, "I didn't mean anything of
the kind. Of course, we have got to part now; I know that."

She clung to his arm more closely, and made him walk slower. Both their
faces grew pale and sad in the moonlight. She could not speak because of
the sobs that came swelling into her throat. He was silent from a bitter
sense of bereavement. After those few weeks of entire happiness, was he
to be driven into the cold world again, leaving the angel of his
paradise behind?

They were drawing near the gate now. Hepworth would not pass into the
boundaries of a man who had wounded him so grievously, so he paused by
the park-wall, snatched her to his bosom, kissed her lips, her eyes, her
hair, blessing her with his soul, promising to find her again, to be
faithful, begging her to love him and no one else, until he broke away
from her and fled down the highway, dashing the tears from his eyes as
he went.

She called after him. She ran a few paces with her arms extended,
entreating him to come back; but he would not hear. All his brave
manhood had been taxed to its utmost. He knew well enough that to go
back was to take the girl with him, and he was not selfish enough for
that.

So poor Lady Clara watched him, till he passed quite away into the
shadows, with her back against the wall, and her hands hanging down
loose, as they had fallen after her last cry. Then she crept slowly back
through the gate, which Badger had left open, and away into the depths
of the park, crying as if her heart would break.

Badger saw her through the diamond-shaped panes of the lodge-window, and
muttered:

"Poor thing, she has forgot the gold; but never mind, it will come."