the vicarage garden also opened to
these fields, and the nearest way to them would have been through its
small wicket gate. It was a long way round he had preferred, but at the
last, he could not make up his mind to go farther on his narrow way
through the young corn, without at least, one pause of retrospection.

He stood still in the serene sunshine, looking towards the hamlet with
its cottages and houses--behind the hedge that bounded his father's
garden, he caught sight of the young girl's slender figure. Her face
was turned his way, but she had no perception of his presence.

His tears sprang quick and hot, but he struggled and overcame them;
then, leaping wildly over banks and ditches, he reached the hedge; she
started: "Farewell, Marlene! I am going. I may be away for a year;" and
he passed his hand over her hair and forehead. "Good-bye!"--"You are
going?" she said; "one thing I should like to ask of you--write
oftener;--do!--your mother needs it, and sometimes send me a little
message."

"I will;" he said in an absent way--and again he went. "Clement!"--she
called after him--he heard, but he did not look back. "It is well that
he did not hear me," she murmured; "what could I have found to say to
him?"

CHAPTER VI.

After this Clement never made a stay of any length in his father's
house. Each time he came, he found him harsher and more intolerant. His
mother was tender and loving as before, but more reserved: Marlene was
calm, but mute whenever they became earnest in discussion. At such
times she would rather avoid being present.

On a bright day towards the end of autumn, we find Clement again in the
small room where, as a boy, he had spent those weeks of convalescence.
One of his friends and fellow-students, had accompanied him home. They
had gone through their course at the University, and had just returned
from a longer tour than usual, during which Wolf had fallen ill, and
had desired to come hither to recover in the quiet of village life.
Clement could not but acquiesce, though of all the young men he knew,
Wolf was the one, he thought, least likely to please his father. But,
contrary to his expectations, the stranger prudently and cleverly
contrived to adapt himself perfectly to the opinions of the old couple;
especially winning the mother's good will, by the merry interest he
manifested in household matters. He gave her good advice, and even
succeeded in curi