Beatrice forgot her fears. He was
so happy--he loved her so dearly--he was so proud of winning her. She
listened through the long hours of that sunny morning. It was the
fifteenth of July--he made her note the day and in two years he would
return to take her forever from the quiet house where her beauty and
grace alike were buried.

That was the view of the matter that had seized upon the girl's
imagination. It was not so much love for Hugh--she liked him. His
flattery--the excitement of meeting him--his love, had become necessary
to her; but had any other means of escape from the monotony she hated
presented itself, she would have availed herself of it quite as
eagerly. Hugh was not so much a lover to her as a medium of escape
from a life that daily became more and more unendurable.

She listened with bright smiles when he told her that in two years he
should return to fetch her; and she, thinking much of the romance, and
little of the dishonor of concealment, told him how her sad young
mother hated and dreaded all mention of love and lovers.

"Then you must never tell her," he said--"leave that for me until I
return. I shall have money then, and perhaps the command of a fine
vessel. She will not refuse me when she knows how dearly I love you,
and even should your father--the father you tell of--come home, you
will be true to me, Beatrice, will you not?"

"Yes, I will be true," she replied--and, to do her justice, she meant
it at the time. Her father's return seemed vague and uncertain; it
might take place in ten or twenty years--it might never be. Hugh
offered her freedom and liberty in two years.

"If others should seek your love," he said, "should praise your beauty,
and offer you rank or wealth, you will say to yourself that you will be
true to Hugh?"

"Yes," she said, firmly, "I will do so."

"Two years will soon pass away," said he. "Ah, Beatrice," he
continued, "I shall leave you next Thursday; give me all the hours you
can. Once away from you, all time will seem to me a long, dark night."

It so happened that the farmer and his men were at work in a field
quite on the other side of Knutsford. Dora and Lillian were intent,
the one upon a box of books newly arrived, the other upon a picture; so
Beatrice had every day many hours at her disposal. She spent them all
with Hugh, whose love seemed to increase with every moment.

Hugh was to leave Seabay on Thursday, and on Wednesday evening he
l