e a Mr Compas here too to interfere with his happiness?

"He was poor, and he went away when my step-mother did not like him."

"You had engaged yourself to him?"

"Oh, no! There had been nothing of that kind. You will understand
that I should not speak to you on such a subject, were it not that I
am bound to tell you my whole heart. But you will never repeat what
you now hear."

"There was no engagement?"

"There was no question of any such thing."

"And he is gone?"

"Yes," said Mary; "he has gone."

"And will not come back again?" Then she looked into his face,--oh!
so wistfully. "When did it happen?"

"When my father was on his death-bed. He had come sooner than that;
but then it was that he went. I think, Mr Whittlestaff, that I never
ought to marry any one after that, and therefore it is that I have
told you."

"You are a good girl, Mary."

"I don't know about that. I think that I ought to deceive you at
least in nothing."

"You should deceive no one."

"No, Mr Whittlestaff." She answered him ever so meekly; but there
was running in her mind a feeling that she had not deceived any one,
and that she was somewhat hardly used by the advice given to her.

"He has gone altogether?" he asked again.

"I do not know where he is,--whether he be dead or alive."

"But if he should come back?"

She only shook her head;--meaning him to understand that she could
say nothing of his purposes should he come back. He had made her
no offer. He had said that if he returned he would come first to
Norwich. There had been something of a promise in this; but oh, so
little! And she did not dare to tell him that hitherto she had lived
upon that little.

"I do not think that you should remain single for ever on that
account. How long is it now since Mr Gordon went?"

There was something in the tone in which he mentioned Mr Gordon's
name which went against the grain with Mary. She felt that he was
spoken of almost as an enemy. "I think it is three years since he
went."

"Three years is a long time. Has he never written?"

"Not to me. How should he write? There was nothing for him to write
about."

"It has been a fancy."

"Yes;--a fancy." He had made this excuse for her, and she had none
stronger to make for herself.

He certainly did not think the better of her in that she had
indulged in such a fancy; but in truth his love was sharpened by
the opposition which this fancy made. It had seemed to him that
his