ring back--_something
to shoot with_," he added, in a lower tone, and coming
close,--remembering Sylvie. "I had a crow-bar, but it's lost in the
jumble. I'll stay here, now."

The wagon drove by, rapidly. The man led his horse down by the wall,
to wait there. Sylvie and Rodney, hand in hand, walked on.

Sylvie shivered with the horrible excitement; her teeth chattered; a
nervous trembling was taking hold of her.

Rodney put his arm round her again. "Don't tremble, dear," he said.

"O, Rodney! What were we kept alive for?"

"For each other," whispered Rodney.

CHAPTER XXXV.

HILL-HOPE.

They were sitting together, the next day, on the rock below the
cascade, in the warm sunshine.

Aunt Euphrasia knew all about it; Aunt Euphrasia had let them go
down there together. She was as content as Rodney in the thing that
could not now be helped.

"I've broken my promise," said Rodney to Sylvie. "I agreed with my
father that I wouldn't be engaged for two years."

"Why, we aren't engaged,--yet,--are we?" asked Sylvie, with
bewitching surprise.

"I don't know," said Rodney, his old, merry, mischievous twinkle
coming in the corners of his eyes, as he flashed them up at her. "I
think we've got the refusal of each other!"

"Well. We'll keep it so. We'll wait. You shall not break any promise
for me," said Sylvie, still sweetly obtuse.

"I'm satisfied with that way of looking at it," said Rodney,
laughing out. "Unless--you mean to be as cunning about everything
else, Sylvie. In that case, I don't know; I'm afraid you'd be
dangerous."

"I wonder if I'm always going to be dangerous to you," said Sylvie,
gravely, taking up the word. "I always get you into an accident."

"When we take matters quietly, the way they were meant to go, we
shall leave off being hustled, I suppose," said Rodney, just as
gravely. "There has certainly been intent in the way we have
been--thrown together!"

"I don't believe you ought to say such things, Rodney,--yet! You are
talking just as if"--

"We weren't waiting. O, yes! I'm glad you invented that little
temporary arrangement. But it's a difficult one to carry out. I
shall be gladder when my father comes. I'm tired of being
Casabianca. I don't see how we can talk at all. Mayn't I tell you
about a little house there is at Arlesbury, with a square porch and
a three-windowed room over it, where anybody could sit and
sew--among plants and things--and see all up and down the road, to