have a sweetheart who dressed well and spoke beautifully, and that was
all the difference between her and other girls. Besides this, she was a
singularly determined young woman. She had made up her mind to marry the
young Squire; he in his folly had given no single hint of the vast, the
insuperable difficulties that lay in the way; and so the bitter business
went on.

The summer passed into autumn, and late November came. Such an affair as
that of Mary Casely and the young Squire could not be long kept out of
the reach of acrid village gossip. Once or twice, as young Ellington
walked out of church from the pew by the chancel, he fancied he saw the
gardeners and farm-people looking at him with intelligence, and he felt
something catching at his throat.

When December came in, his misery had grown to acuteness. His old
passive wretchedness had given way to a settled nervous dread which wore
the brightness from his comely face.

One grey afternoon he took the old road to the sea again. The wind was
crying drearily, and the trees creaked as they swayed to each swift
gust. He shivered when he came in sight of the sea, for the low sky was
leaden. The very foam looked dull. Every few seconds came a muffled
boom, as a roller shattered itself against the rocks, and a tower of
spray shot up and fell on the sodden grass.

The wild flowers were gone, and the bents bowed themselves cheerlessly.

How many things else were gone! How many things else were cheerless!

He turned round when he could bear waiting no longer, and prepared to
carry his miseries home. Something ill must have happened. At the bluff
of the shrubbery where he had first seen Mary pass out of sight he heard
a step, but it was not that sharp, steady step he had learnt to know so
well. He was face to face with Mr. Casely. It had come at last. For
weeks he had foreshadowed this meeting in his dreams, and the fear had
so worked on him that he had learned a trick of glancing suddenly over
his shoulder. Casely looked steadily down at the young Squire for a time
that seemed long, and then, unclenching his tense jaw, said quietly--

"It wasn't me you were expecting to meet."

"I didn't expect to meet you. No; how do you come to be passing this
way?"

"I've been up to the Hall seeing your grandfather. You know what I've
been for very near as well as I do. And now I have to talk to you. Speak
straight, or I'll break you in two across my knee."

Ellington was not