Don't speak kindly to me, Gabriel; I can't bear kindness. I have made
up my mind to bear the worst. Go away; your goodness only makes things
the harder for me. After all, I am only a woman, and as a woman I must
w-e-e-p.' She broke down, and her tears flowed quickly.

'I shall go,' said Gabriel, feeling helpless, for indeed he could do
nothing. 'Good-bye, Bell!' he faltered.

'Good-bye!' she sobbed. 'God bless you!'

Gabriel, with a sick heart, moved slowly towards the door. Just as he
reached it, Bell rose swiftly, and crossing the room threw her arms
round his neck, weeping as though her overcharged heart would break. 'I
shall never kiss you again,' she wailed,'never, never again!'

'God bless and keep you, my poor darling!' faltered Gabriel.

'And God bless you! for a good man you have been to me,' she sobbed, and
then they parted, never to meet again in this world.

And that was the end of Gabriel Pendle's romance. At first he thought of
going to the South Seas as a missionary, but his father's entreaties
that he should avoid so extreme a course prevailed, and in the end he
went no further from Beorminster than Heathcroft Vicarage. Mr Leigh died
a few days after Bell vanished from the little county town: and Gabriel
was presented with the living by the bishop. He is a conscientious
worker, an earnest priest, a popular vicar, but his heart is still sore
for Bell, who so nobly gave him up to bear her own innocent disgrace
alone. Where Bell is now he does not know; nobody in Beorminster
knows--not even Mrs Pansey--for she has disappeared like a drop of water
in the wild waste ocean of London town. And Gabriel works on amid the
poor and needy with a cheerful face but a sore heart; for it is early
days yet, and his heart-wounds are recent. No one save the bishop knows
how he loved and lost poor Bell; but Mrs Pendle, with the double
instinct of woman and mother, guesses that her favourite son has his own
pitiful romance, and would fain know of it, that she might comfort him
in his sorrow. But Gabriel has never told her; he will never tell her,
but go silent and unmarried through life, true to the memory of the
rough, commonplace woman who proved herself so noble and honourable in
adversity. And so no more of these poor souls.

It is more pleasant to talk of the Whichello-Pansey war. '_Bella
matronis detestata_,' saith the Latin poet, who knew little of the sex
to make such a remark. To be sure, he was talking of pub