ved by the girl he loves. You have come across my life, and have
swallowed me up, and made me all your own. But I will not marry you
to be rejected by your people. No; nor shall there be a kiss between
us till I know that it will not be so."

"May I speak to your father?"

"For what good? I have not spoken to father or mother because I have
known that it must depend upon your father. Lord Silverbridge, if
he will tell me that I shall be his daughter, I will become your
wife,--oh, with such perfect joy, with such perfect truth! If it can
never be so, then let us be torn apart,--with whatever struggle,
still at once. In that case I will get myself back to my own country
as best I may, and will pray to God that all this may be forgotten."
Then she made her way round to the door, leaving him fixed to the
spot in which she had been standing. But as she went she made a
little prayer to him. "Do not delay my fate. It is all in all to me."
And so he was left alone in the billiard-room.

CHAPTER LIII

"Then I Am As Proud As a Queen"

During the next day or two the shooting went on without much
interruption from love-making. The love-making was not prosperous all
round. Poor Lady Mary had nothing to comfort her. Could she have been
allowed to see the letter which her lover had written to her father,
the comfort would have been, if not ample, still very great. Mary
told herself again and again that she was quite sure of Tregear;--but
it was hard upon her that she could not be made certain that her
certainty was well grounded. Had she known that Tregear had written,
though she had not seen a word of his letter, it would have comforted
her. But she had heard nothing of the letter. In June last she had
seen him, by chance, for a few minutes, in Lady Mabel's drawing-room.
Since that she had not heard from him or of him. That was now more
than five months since. How could her love serve her,--how could her
very life serve her, if things were to go on like that? How was she
to bear it? Thinking of this she resolved--she almost resolved--that
she would go boldly to her father and desire that she might be given
up to her lover.

Her brother, though more triumphant,--for how could he fail to
triumph after such words as Isabel had spoken to him?--still felt his
difficulties very seriously. She had imbued him with a strong sense
of her own firmness, and she had declared that she would go away and
leave him altogether if the D