by its declaration—I will no longer deny you the

Satisfaction.'

You love me?'

`I do.'

For a time that seemed to both as if centuries of thought and feeling were sweeping over them, they were silent.

Then she spoke very softly—

"Have I now satisfied you?'

'I cannot thank you. I suppose you know that?'

'You do thank me. I am sure you do. Well now, Cunliff, it is your part to be generous, manly, considerate. If our love be such as we have both, with unconscious flattery perhaps, painted it, it is a love that will not allow you to attach evermore a breath of any kind of reproach or dishonour to my name. So also is it a love that will make me yearn not to see you, nor in any way, for a long time to come, to communicate with you. No-hear me out!—but that will make me watch unceasingly, to learn of your good works, of your growing fame, of your recognised power and influence among and over your fellow-men.'

'Dreams!' ejaculated Cunliff, and turned as if he would no longer even look upon her.

When he again turned, he was startled to see how unconscious he had been while she had risen and walked away homeward.

Swiftly he pursued and overtook her.

She, however, resolutely moved on towards the slope in front, which had to be ascended, and he was obliged to content himself with pouring out the last bitter flow of speech as he walked by her side.

'And is it possible that you can thus dismiss me to my fate? Can you see me return, perhaps, to the base life from which only an angel could have drawn me? You are, you must be -the instrument of my salvation! Live for me and I will be to you what man never yet was to woman. I feel I could write my name and yours so deeply in the world's heart, that they should never be forgotten. I am no philanthropist, yet I could, I think, under the inspiration of your ever-present love, move the men of my time out of their ceaseless talk into serious action-for the benefit of the reeking mass of miserable humanity that lies all about us. The beauty of such work would impel me on when the duty of it might seem too

weak. But I need your eyes to refresh my dulled ones-if the sense of that beauty is to keep alive and be fruitful. Catherine, dearest, is there no hope for me beyond aught you have yet said? It is your love I need. With that I will play my part worthily before God and man.'

That love shall be yours so far as I can in honour give it. Honour! God help me― -for even His common words fail to express my sad state. But He will pity me, I think, if I act by the light given-and that light, dear friend, says I must go this way, and you that!'

She pointed as she spoke, first downward towards Dola' Hudol; and then to Dolgarrog, and the mountains behind it, through which lay the road to Cunliff's own home.

They were now on the edge of the hill they had been ascending, and stood almost on a level with the dimly-seen mountain-tops, across the valley that lay below in misty distance, winding in large, grand undulations from Criba Ban on the left, to Snowdon on the right. Looking towards Snowdon, the valley appeared almost straight; and down it, as Cunliff turned his eyes that way, there came sailing through the sky, where the golden haze of the sunset had left just a last suggestion of its warm radiance, a single heron-gaunt even at a distance-stately and steady in flight, unswerving and swift. With that unconscious superstition that in moments of great import makes trivialities become as the signs of fate, Rymer looked at the bird, and felt that if it continued coming straight down over the valley, and passed where they two were, as certainly must this bitterness pass his lips. As he stood and looked, Mrs. Rhys came close before him, holding out her hand, as if taking her final leave. He received it, but dropped it again; and sat on a bit of low broken wall beside her, his hat off, his hands clenched between his knees, his eyes on the patch of dark cloud sailing out of the faint but still golden distance.

As Mrs. Rhys looked at that white face, and that broad brow, where the lines seemed to have marked the minutes instead of the years that had passed over it, there came a rush of warm, brave pity into her heart. A mother's comforting power and sweetness was in her touch and voice as she laid her hand on his shoulder and said

'I should suffer more than I do if I you things are better than with me.

did not know that with My existence ! What

can it be now at the best? Patience, endurance, success in hiding the only living thing in my heart. This is suffering! But with you it is all different. You have a comforter. Do you think I have not seen it? Call it the dream of your youthyour first ideal-what you will; I shall call it as Christ did, the spirit of truth.' You have seen truly; I never did till I knew you. You may again see truly. And oh, Cunliff, may these tears that dim your eyes at this parting be the falling of the mist that has blinded them so long. This very suffering itself should help you; for you know that for such minds as yours there is a rebound from deepest misery to highest and noblest bliss. And you will let this be so now? If you wish there should be one link between us still, if you would let some light and hope into my dark life, you will let me hear this has been so with you.'

He felt that she bent down towards him; he saw the lonely heron-his messenger of fate-coming steadily, swiftly on through all the clear spiritual beauty of the evening sky, growing larger and more gaunt and sharp in outline.

It came-it passed. He cowered on the ruined wall.

Mrs. Rhys stooped and kissed his brow, but he did not stir, for he thought the kiss was not for him, but for that spirit within him, of which she had spoken, and in which he had no faith.

He knew then that she was going from him, but could not stir or speak; there was in the quiet, gentle step, as it receded, something that told him no gesture, no word could stop it.

But suddenly it did stop, and his heart seemed to stop beating at the same instant. Yet he did not dare to look up or to

move.

The steps came hastening back, and he could but look up now with a certain fear, for they were like those of a person running from danger.

The next instant Mrs. Rhys was clinging to his arm, trembling, panic-stricken.

He

He looked beyond her for the cause of her alarm, and saw it slowly ascending the path through the firs-a gray figure, tall and courtly, a grave, long face, pale and bearded. He did not recognise it, but knew that he had done so. needed to ask her no question, he needed only to think how to help her, as the great blue eyes and white trembling lips appealed to him with a child's helplessness-a woman's agony.

Selfish as he was, Cunliff at that moment would gladly have had the earth swallow him for her sake. For himself and his own danger, in meeting the man who was approaching them, he cared little. But for her his very soul yearned to do the thing that was best. He conquered his own strong longing to let things so chance as to drive her to him for protection. He gave a quick, scrutinising glance at the coming face, and saw that it was at present looking down. Was there hope still that he had not seen them? No sooner did the thought come than he saw it was the one to act upon.

He looked at her, and said quickly, but decisively

'He may not have seen me. You must meet him as if he had not. Have courage!

His look and voice had complete command over her. Her cold hand was firm, even before it left his, with one tight, icy pressure.

Have courage, dear life!'

'I have—I will have,' answered the white lips. 'God bless you! Go-go quickly!'

And they parted, Cunliff going to the little wood, and Mrs. Rhys hurrying to the brow of the hill to meet her husband.

Cunliff could not, to save his soul, have kept out of earshot of that meeting. He could urge her on to save herself; but if it were too late, she should not stand alone to meet that man's rage. Whatever his interference might cost him, or her, interfere he would if he suspected danger.

So he crept along inside the firs, as she went with a sickly miserable smile on her face down the path up which the form he could not see was coming.

The firs now were too thick to allow him to see her, but he heard her footsteps, and his own kept pace with them. Soon he heard also the ascending footsteps, and wondered whether they were not more than usually measured and deliberate. Was she thinking so, poor soul, and trembling? he asked himself.

They have met he has heard the footsteps stop.

'Dear Owen!' says the sweet, hysterical voice.

Cunliff can just see through the trees that her husband has taken both her hands and kissed her.

'You are looking very pale, darling—are you not well ? › The tone is rather politely kind than tenderly anxious or shocked. Is it natural to him, Cunliff wonders; or is it

strangely unnatural, and filling her with alarm, as it fills him with alarm for her sake?

Then they turn and move on slowly together towards Dola' Hudol, Mrs. Rhys murmuring some inaudible reply to her husband's question; and Cunliff is left in wretched suspense -suspense that is not to be passively endured-that makes it impossible for him to withstand following and watching the two figures. Gliding along in the shelter of the firs, he descends the hill with them; gliding on inside the rude road wall, he goes with them till they reach the carriage-gates of Dola' Hudol. But no movement of theirs shows him what he so much longs to know, and he is never near enough to overhear their words.

The great gates are open, and still remain open after the master and mistress have passed through them; but now he dare only follow them with his eyes up the broad, rising carriage-drive. They stop at the little side door of the Tudor arch, and then he loses sight of them.

But he lingers about the place, watching the windows as the lights appear in them one by one, with a passionate dread that will not let him go-that drags back his feet when he takes some paces homeward.

The park trees are black, and the owls of Dola' Hudol are filling the sweet, still night-air with their melancholy cries before he has forced himself to take his way back to Dolgarrog, to his little close lodgings at the old Council House-to struggle there with his remorse and his miserable suspense as to Catherine's fate.

CHAPTER XI.

THE HOME OF THE PEACEMAKER.

DAYLIGHT is spreading slowly down the long valley below Capel Illtyd, driving the clinging river mist before it. There is light enough for the miners as they cross the little bridge to see part of the Abbey ruins, even if another light did not fall redly upon them-the light of a turf fire burning in the great refectory, which is now the centre of a straggling farmhouse, hidden from the bridge by trees.

As the light streams from the hidden window, and flickers