says, 'Don't tell
her!' Under these circumstances I close my letter--with my best excuses
for leaving you in the dark.

"I shall probably be in London before long--and I may tell you by word
of mouth what I don't think it safe to write here. Mind, I make no
promise! It all depends on how I feel toward you at the time. I don't
doubt your discretion; but (under certain circumstances) I am not so
sure of your courage. L. G."

"P. S.--My best thanks for your permission to renew the bill. I decline
profiting by the proposal. The money will be ready when the money is
due. I have a friend now in London who will pay it if I ask him. Do you
wonder who the friend is? You will wonder at one or two other things,
Mrs. Oldershaw, before many weeks more are over your head and mine."

XI. LOVE AND LAW.

On the morning of Monday, the 28th of July, Miss Gwilt--once more on the
watch for Allan and Neelie--reached her customary post of observation in
the park, by the usual roundabout way.

She was a little surprised to find Neelie alone at the place of meeting.
She was more seriously astonished, when the tardy Allan made his
appearance ten minutes later, to see him mounting the side of the dell,
with a large volume under his arm, and to hear him say, as an apology
for being late, that "he had muddled away his time in hunting for the
Books; and that he had only found one, after all, which seemed in
the least likely to repay either Neelie or himself for the trouble of
looking into it."

If Miss Gwilt had waited long enough in the park, on the previous
Saturday, to hear the lovers' parting words on that occasion, she would
have been at no loss to explain the mystery of the volume under Allan's
arm, and she would have understood the apology which he now offered for
being late as readily as Neelie herself.

There is a certain exceptional occasion in life--the occasion of
marriage--on which even girls in their teens sometimes become capable
(more or less hysterically) of looking at consequences. At the farewell
moment of the interview on Saturday, Neelie's mind had suddenly
precipitated itself into the future; and she had utterly confounded
Allan by inquiring whether the contemplated elopement was an offense
punishable by the Law? Her memory satisfied her that she had certainly
read somewhere, at some former period, in some book or other (possibly a
novel), of an elopement with a dreadful end--of a bride dragged home in
hysterics