man to take charge of his
estates; he is too old now himself, and has none to help him. I have had
the offer for Hubert, and have accepted it; he must go as soon as I have
returned. I am sorry to lose the lad, but since James----'" and Hubert
broke off. "I must not read that," he said.

Isabel still stood, stretching her hands out to the fire, turned a little
away from him.

"But what can I say?" went on the lad passionately, "I must go; and--and
God knows for how long, five or six years maybe; and I shall come back
and find you--and find you----" and a sob rose up and silenced him.

"Hubert," she said, turning and looking with a kind of wavering
steadiness into his shadowed eyes, and even then noticing the clean-cut
features and the smooth curve of his jaw with the firelight on it, "you
ought not----"

"I know, I know; I promised my father; but there are some things I cannot
bear. Of course I do not want you to promise anything; but I thought that
if perhaps you could tell me that you thought--that you thought there
would be no one else; and that when I came back----"

"Hubert," she said again, resolutely, "it is impossible: our
religions----"

"But I would do anything, I think. Besides, in five years so much may
happen. You might become a Catholic--or--or, I might come to see that the
Protestant Religion was nearly the same, or as true at least--or--or--so
much might happen.--Can you not tell me anything before I go?"

A keen ray of hope had pierced her heart as he spoke; and she scarcely
knew what she said.

"But, Hubert, even if I were to say----"

He seized her hands and kissed them again and again.

"Oh! God bless you, Isabel! Now I can go so happily. And I will not speak
of it again; you can trust me; it will not be hard for you."

She tried to draw her hands away, but he still held them tightly in his
own strong hands, and looked into her face. His eyes were shining.

"Yes, yes, I know you have promised nothing. I hold you to nothing. You
are as free as ever to do what you will with me. But,"--and he lifted her
hands once more and kissed them, and dropped them; seized his cap and was
gone.

Isabel was left alone in a tumult of thought and emotion. He had taken
her by storm; she had not guessed how desperately weak she was towards
him, until he had come to her like this in a whirlwind of passion and
stood trembling and almost crying, with the ruddy firelight on his face,
and his eyes burning out o