ere possible to live up to
such a high ideal--"

"I would rather die to-night than think that it was _impossible_."

"My dear" (he was manifestly annoyed now), "you really express yourself
too strongly."

"But what use would it be to live?" She was going on but she stopped.
What use was it to talk? None.

She let the subject pass and they conversed on other things.

She felt strange loneliness. "Am I, in truth, fantastical?" she sighed,
"or, if Heaven is witness to the sober truth of that which I conceive,
am I so weak as to need other sympathy?" This was the tenor, not the
words, of her thought. Yet all the way home, as they talked and walked
through the glowing autumn land, her heart was aching.

CHAPTER XIX.

The day came on which Bates was to go home. He had had a week's petulant
struggle with his malady since he last passed through the door of
Trenholme's house, but now he had conquered it for the hour, and even
his host perceived that it was necessary for him to make his journey
before the weather grew colder.

His small belongings packed, his morose good-byes said, Alec Trenholme
drove him to the railway station.

Both the brothers knew why it was that, in taking leave of them, Bates
hardly seemed to notice that he did so; they knew that, in leaving the
place, he was all-engrossed in the thought that he was leaving the girl,
Eliza Cameron, for ever; but he seemed to have no thought of saying to
her a second farewell.

The stern reserve which Bates had maintained on this subject had so
wrought on Alec's sympathy that he had consulted his brother as to the
advisability of himself making some personal appeal to Eliza, and the
day before Bates started he had actually gone on this mission. If it was
not successful, hardly deserved that it should be; for when he stood in
front of the girl, he could not conceal the great dislike he felt for
her, nor could he bring himself to plead on behalf of a man who he felt
was worth a thousand such as she. He said briefly that Bates was to
start for home the next day, and by such a train, and that he had
thought it might concern her to know it.

"Did he tell you to tell me?" asked Eliza, without expression.

"No, he didn't; and what's more, he never told me how you came here. You
think he's been telling tales about you! You can know now that he never
did; he's not that sort. I saw you at Turrifs, and when I saw you again
here I knew you. All I've got to say a