, as I leave to-morrow morning by the early
train. You will, at least, wish me good-bye?"

"Good-bye, Maurice."

"Good-bye, Vera; God bless you."

She opened the door softly and went out. She went slowly away down the
avenue, wrapping her cloak closely around her; the wind blew cold and
chill, and she shivered a little as she walked. Presently she struck
aside along a narrow pathway through the grass that led her homewards by
a shorter cut. She had forgotten that Sir John was to wait for her at the
lodge-gates.

She had forgotten his very existence. For she _knew_. She had eaten of
the tree of knowledge, and the scales had fallen for ever from her eyes.

She knew that Maurice loved her--and, alas! for her--she knew also that
she loved him. And between them a great gulf was fixed; deep, and wide,
and impassable as the waters of Lethe.

Out of the calm, unconscious lethargy of her maidenhood's untroubled
dreams the soul of Vera had awakened at length to the realization of the
strong, passionate woman's heart that was within her.

She loved! It had come to her at last; this thing that she had scorned
and disbelieved in, and yet that, possibly, she had secretly longed for.
She had deemed herself too cold, too wise, too much set upon the good
things of earth, to be touched by that scorching fire; but now she was no
colder than any other love-sick maiden, no wiser than every other foolish
woman who had been ready to wreck her life for love in the world's
history.

Surely no girl ever learnt the secret of her own heart with such dire
dismay as did Vera Nevill. There was neither joy nor gladness within her,
only a great anger against herself and her fate, and even against him
who, as he had said, had dared to love her. She had courted the avowal
from his lips, and yet she resented the words she had wrung from him.
But, more than all, she resented the treachery of the heart that was
within her.

"Why did I ever see him?" she cried aloud in her bitterness, striking her
hands wildly against each other. "What evil fate brought us together?
What fool's madness induced me to go near him to-day? I was happy enough;
I had all I wanted; I was content with my fate--and now--now!" Her
passionate words died away into a wail. In her haste and her abstraction
her foot caught against a long, withered bramble trail that lay across
her path; she half stumbled. It was sufficient to arrest her steps. She
stood still, and leant against