have sought your money, to have wooed you as the heiress, and not as the woman. If such scruples were strong enough to make me leave you then-leave you as, before God, I believed, to forget me shortly in a more suitable marriage with another-do you not think I have ten thousand times stronger reasons for leaving you now-now that it is not my honour, but yours, that is at stake? Can your dishonour, your disgrace, bring happiness to either of us? Darling, I love you too well to take you at your word!'

'You despise me!' she sobbed, moving uneasily in his arms. 'Not so, love. Can a man, worthy of the name of man, ever do otherwise than honour the woman whose only sin is that of loving him too well? To me you must ever be the same- -it is of the world's slanders that I was speaking-you do not know how cruel and how blighting they can be, my child. You think you would not feel them; but, believe me, I should feel them for you. My Juliet, my darling! second, but dearest and strongest love of my life, that no other woman can ever displace from my heart whilst I live by your own dear words you have placed yourself and your life in my hands. Well, then, I will dispose of it. I give it you back, as the most precious gift I can offer you! I tell you that, lonely and miserable as it is, it is still better and holier than the life you would spend with me-that there are duties still left for you, in the patient fulfilment of which you may still find-if not happiness, at least peace.'

He ceased speaking.

Juliet's cheek, wet with tears, was pressed against his arm in silence.

Across the river, the lights on the opposite bank gleamed out in the darkness, and flung long streaks of broken red flame across the water. A bird, awakened, perhaps, by the sound of their voices, twittered for a moment in the branches above them. A gust of distant laughter came up from the great white club-house behind them, so faint, so distant, that its merriment scarcely jarred upon them. All his life long, Hugh could see that scene before his eyes, and hear those sounds in his ears.

'Hugh, I cannot-I cannot leave off loving you,' she said, raising her heavy eyes, glistening with tears, to his.

'God forbid that you should,' he answered. 'I do not think the impossible is ever expected of us in this world-to tell you to do that would be to tell you to work miracles. Why should you not love me, my poor child? You have nothing else to love! Away with those who would see a sin in love! Love is divine-intense, honest love, however mistaken, however unfortunate the circumstances of it may be, must for ever be ennobling to him who loves and to him who is loved. Love me, my child, as I shall love you;

but, darling, we may not meet-not again in this world, if we can help it. I will keep out of your way even if I ever come back from India again; and for the present, for many years probably, there will be half the earth between us; and I will write to you often. We may at least be friends, dear friends, since we must be nothing more.'

"You will write!' she said, in a brighter voice—that will comfort me; and I may write to you ?'

'Yes, indeed, I shall look for your letters-letters that, I trust, will not tell me of a thoroughly empty and wasted existence -that will not be filled from January to December with nothing but the doings of fashionable life; of the sayings of such women as Mrs. Dalmaine; of such men as Lord George Mannersley. Your heart is too noble, your mind is too refined, my Juliet, to waste on such companions as these. Go down to Sotherne again, whether your husband go with you or not; live on your own land and among your own people; and then see whether life has not left you much to occupy and to interest you. It grieves me to think that Sotherne has been so long neglected by your father's daughter-dear Sotherne! Will it make you like to be there oftener, Juliet, if I tell you that I love the place, that when I am far away it will make me a little happier to think of you there than here? For my sake, if for nothing else, will you make it your home again?'

'I will do everything you tell me,' she answered humbly, looking up at him.

He was not looking at her; his eyes were turned away across the shadowy river, and a gleam of moonlight lit up his strong brave face, that was neither beautiful nor young; yet out of his deep-set thoughtful eyes there shone the steadfast light of the great true heart within him, giving it a beauty of the soul which is lacking in many a more regularly chiselled countenance.

At that moment Juliet felt she hardly could pity herself and her lot. It was so good, she felt, to be so loved and so cared for by such a man. It was something to have lived for, to have won such a heart as his! And if, indeed, as he told her, they must never meet again in this world, surely the memory of this night alone must console her for ever for the blank years that were to succeed it. 'You are so good to me!' she whispered.

He looked down at her with one of those quick tender smiles which seemed to come into his face like a flash of sunlight for Juliet alone.

But the sight of her white face of misery, of her dark upturned eyes, wet with unshed tears, and solemn in their unspeakable woe,