! Give me your hand upon it.'

She gave him her hand.

'Is it a covenant?' he asked.

'It is,' said she.

Lord Mountclere warmed from surface to centre as if he had drunk of
hippocras, and, after holding her hand for some moments, raised it gently
to his lips.

'Two days and you are mine,' he said.

'That I believe I never shall be.'

'Never shall be? Why, darling?'

'I don't know. Some catastrophe will prevent it. I shall be dead
perhaps.'

'You distress me. Ah,--you meant me--you meant that I should be dead,
because you think I am old! But that is a mistake--I am not very old!'

'I thought only of myself--nothing of you.'

'Yes, I know. Dearest, it is dismal and chilling here--let us go.'

Ethelberta mechanically moved with him, and felt there was no retreating
now. In the meantime the young ladykin whom the solemn vowing concerned
had lingered round the choir screen, as if fearing to enter, yet loth to
go away. The service terminated, the heavy books were closed, doors were
opened, and the feet of the few persons who had attended evensong began
pattering down the paved alleys. Not wishing Picotee to know that the
object of her secret excursion had been discovered, Ethelberta now
stepped out of the west doorway with the viscount before Picotee had
emerged from the other; and they walked along the path together until she
overtook them.

'I fear it becomes necessary for me to stay in Melchester to-night,' said
Lord Mountclere. 'I have a few matters to attend to here, as the result
of our arrangements. But I will first accompany you as far as Anglebury,
and see you safely into a carriage there that shall take you home. To-
morrow I will drive to Knollsea, when we will make the final
preparations.'

Ethelberta would not have him go so far and back again, merely to attend
upon her; hence they parted at the railway, with due and correct
tenderness; and when the train had gone, Lord Mountclere returned into
the town on the special business he had mentioned, for which there
remained only the present evening and the following morning, if he were
to call upon her in the afternoon of the next day--the day before the
wedding--now so recklessly hastened on his part, and so coolly assented
to on hers.

By the time that the two young people had started it was nearly dark.
Some portions of the railway stretched through little copses and
plantations where, the leaf-shedding season being now at its heig