to be,
save in an aftermath of love, if you will only let the future bring
it. So, dearest love, my darling--more to me than place and power and
all the world can give--come to me--come--come--come."

CHAPTER V.

STRONG KNOTS OF LOVE.

Now never did a letter bring more contrary feelings to man or maid
than this one of Michael Sunlocks brought to Greeba. It thrilled her
with love, it terrified her with fear; it touched her with delight,
it chilled her with despair; it made her laugh, it made her weep; she
kissed it with quivering lips, she dropped it from trembling fingers.
But in the end it swept her heart and soul away with it, as it must
have swept away the heart and soul of any maiden who ever loved, and
she leaped at the thought that she must go to Sunlocks and to her
father at once, without delay--not waiting to write, or for the
messenger that was to come.

Yet the cooler moment followed, when she remembered Jason. She was
pledged to him; she had given him her promise; and if she broke her
word she would break his heart. But Sunlocks--Sunlocks--Sunlocks! She
could hear his low, passionate voice in the words of his letter.
Jason she had loved for his love of her; but Sunlocks she had loved
of her love alone.

What was she to do? Go to Sunlocks, and thereby break her word and
the heart of Jason, or abide by Jason, and break her own heart and
the hope of Sunlocks? "Oh," she thought, "if the letter had but come
a day earlier--one little day--nay, one hour--one little, little
hour!" Then, in her tortured mind, she reproached Jason for keeping
it back from her by his forgetfulness, and at the next instant she
reproached Sunlocks for his tardy despatch, and last of all she
reproached herself for not waiting for it. "Oh," she thought, "was
ever a girl born to bring such misery to those who love her!"

All the long night thereafter she tossed in restless doubt, never
once closing her eyes in sleep; and at daydawn she rose and dressed,
and threw open her window, and cool waves of morning air floated
down upon her from the mountains, where the bald crown of Barrule was
tipped with rosy light from the sun that was rising over the sea.
Then, in the stillness of the morning, before the cattle in the
meadows had begun to low, or the sheep on the hills to bleat, and
there was yet no noise of work in the rickyard or the shippon, and
all the moorland below lay asleep under its thin coverlet of mist,
there came to