e potency of that passion which can bring men to seriously
entertain the idea of such extravagances.

Well, there was nothing more to be done. He might, it is true, have
seen Ida, and working upon her love and natural inclinations have
tried to persuade her to cut the knot by marrying him off-hand.
Perhaps he would have succeeded, for in these affairs women are apt to
find the arguments advanced by their lovers weighty and well worthy of
consideration. But he was not the man to adopt such a course. He did
the only thing he could do--answered her letter by saying that what
must be must be. He had learnt that on the day subsequent to his
interview with his rival the Squire had written to Edward Cossey
informing him that a decided answer would be given to him on Christmas
Day, and that thereon all vexatious proceedings on the part of that
gentleman's lawyers had been stayed for the time. He could now no
longer doubt what the answer would be. There was only one way out of
the trouble, the way which Ida had made up her mind to adopt.

So he set to work to make his preparations for leaving Honham and this
country for good and all. He wrote to land agents and put Molehill
upon their books to be sold or let on lease, and also to various
influential friends to obtain introductions to the leading men in New
Zealand. But these matters did not take up all his time, and the rest
of it hung heavily on his hands. He mooned about the place until he
was tired. He tried to occupy himself in his garden, but it was weary
work sowing crops for strange hands to reap, and so he gave it up.

Somehow the time wore on until at last it was Christmas Eve; the eve,
too, of the fatal day of Ida's decision. He dined alone that night as
usual, and shortly after dinner some waits came to the house and began
to sing their cheerful carols outside. The carols did not chime in at
all well with his condition of mind, and he sent five shillings out to
the singers with a request that they would go away as he had a
headache.

Accordingly they went; and shortly after their departure the great
gale for which that night is still famous began to rise. Then he fell
to pacing up and down the quaint old oak-panelled parlour, thinking
until his brain ached. The hour was at hand, the evil was upon him and
her whom he loved. Was there no way out of it, no possible way? Alas!
there was but one way and that a golden one; but where was the money
to come from? He had it