ugh I would die for you I cannot change
it. It would seem that I was denying God; and--oh! it would make me
ashamed of my love."

"Fear nothing!" He winds her about with his arm. "Come! He will love us
both, and love you the more for being faithful to your father's creed.
You don't know him, Lucy. He seems harsh and stern--he is full of
kindness and love. He isn't at all a bigot. And besides, when he hears
what the nuns have done for you, won't he thank them, as I do? And--oh! I
must speak to him soon, and you must be prepared to see him soon, for I
cannot bear your remaining at Belthorpe, like a jewel in a sty. Mind! I'm
not saying a word against your uncle. I declare I love everybody and
everything that sees you and touches you. Stay! it is a wonder how you
could have grown there. But you were not born there, and your father had
good blood. Desborough!--here was a Colonel Desborough--never mind!
Come!"

She dreads to. She begs not to. She is drawn away.

The woods are silent, and then--

"What think you of that for a pretty pastoral?" says a very different
voice.

Adrian reclined against a pine overlooking the fern-covert. Lady Blandish
was recumbent upon the brown pine-droppings, gazing through a vista of
the lower greenwood which opened out upon the moon-lighted valley, her
hands clasped round one knee, her features almost stern in their set hard
expression.

They had heard, by involuntarily overhearing about as much as may be
heard in such positions, a luminous word or two.

The lady did not answer. A movement among the ferns attracted Adrian, and
he stepped down the decline across the pine-roots to behold heavy Benson
below; shaking fern-seed and spidery substances off his crumpled skin.

"Is that you, Mr. Hadrian?" called Benson, starting, as he puffed, and
exercised his handkerchief.

"Is it you, Benson, who have had the audacity to spy upon these
Mysteries?" Adrian called back, and coming close to him, added, "You look
as if you had just been well thrashed."

"Isn't it dreadful, sir?" snuffled Benson. "And his father in ignorance,
Mr. Hadrian!"

"He shall know, Benson! He shall know how, you have endangered your
valuable skin in his service. If Mr. Richard had found you there just now
I wouldn't answer for the consequences."

"Ha!" Benson spitefully retorted. "This won't go on; Mr. Hadrian. It
shan't, sir. It will be put a stop to tomorrow, sir. I call it corruption
of a young gentleman like him