But she had none to reply with, and could only mutely bend upward her
gentle wrist.

"Then, farewell!" he said, and, dropping his lips to the soft fair hand,
kissed it, and hung his head, swinging away from her, ready for death.

Strange, that now she was released she should linger by him. Strange,
that his audacity, instead of the executioner, brought blushes and timid
tenderness to his side, and the sweet words, "You are not angry with me?"

"With you, O Beloved!" cried his soul. "And you forgive me, fair
charity!"

"I think it was rude of me to go without thanking you again," she said,
and again proffered her hand.

The sweet heaven-bird shivered out his song above him. The gracious glory
of heaven fell upon his soul. He touched her hand, not moving his eyes
from her, nor speaking, and she, with a soft word of farewell, passed
across the stile, and up the pathway through the dewy shades of the
copse, and out of the arch of the light, away from his eyes.

And away with her went the wild enchantment. He looked on barren air. But
it was no more the world of yesterday. The marvellous splendours had sown
seeds in him, ready to spring up and bloom at her gaze; and in his bosom
now the vivid conjuration of her tones, her face, her shape, makes them
leap and illumine him like fitful summer lightnings ghosts of the
vanished sun.

There was nothing to tell him that he had been making love and declaring
it with extraordinary rapidity; nor did he know it. Soft flushed cheeks!
sweet mouth! strange sweet brows! eyes of softest fire! how could his
ripe eyes behold you, and not plead to keep you? Nay, how could he let
you go? And he seriously asked himself that question.

To-morrow this place will have a memory--the river and the meadow, and
the white falling weir: his heart will build a temple here; and the
skylark will be its high-priest, and the old blackbird its glossy-gowned
chorister, and there will be a sacred repast of dewberries. To-day the
grass is grass: his heart is chased by phantoms and finds rest nowhere.
Only when the most tender freshness of his flower comes across him does
he taste a moment's calm; and no sooner does it come than it gives place
to keen pangs of fear that she may not be his for ever.

Erelong he learns that her name is Lucy. Erelong he meets Ralph, and
discovers that in a day he has distanced him by a sphere. He and Ralph
and the curate of Lobourne join in their walks, and raise classica