ender leaves. The young man bent his face on his
hands and mused dreamily: the evening deepened; the stars came forth;
the rays of the moon now peered aslant through the arching dips of the
willow, silvering their way as they stole to the waves below.

"Shall I bring lights, sir? or do you prefer a lamp or candles?" asked
a voice behind,--the voice of the elderly man's wife. "Do you like the
shutters closed?"

The question startled the dreamer. They seemed mocking his own old
mockings on the romance of love. Lamp or candles, practical lights for
prosaic eyes, and shutters closed against moon and stars!

"Thank you, ma'am, not yet," he said; and rising quietly he placed his
hand on the window-sill, swung himself through the open casement, and
passed slowly along the margin of the rivulet, by a path checkered
alternately with shade and starlight; the moon yet more slowly rising
above the willows, and lengthening its track along the wavelets.

CHAPTER III.

THOUGH Kenelm did not think it necessary at present to report to his
parents or his London acquaintances his recent movements and his present
resting-place, it never entered into his head to lurk _perdu_ in the
immediate vicinity of Lily's house, and seek opportunities of meeting
her clandestinely. He walked to Mrs. Braefield's the next morning, found
her at home, and said in rather a more off-hand manner than was habitual
to him, "I have hired a lodging in your neighbourhood, on the banks of
the brook, for the sake of its trout-fishing. So you will allow me to
call on you sometimes, and one of these days I hope you will give me the
dinner I so unceremoniously rejected some days ago. I was then summoned
away suddenly, much against my will."

"Yes; my husband said that you shot off from him with a wild exclamation
about duty."

"Quite true; my reason, and I may say my conscience, were greatly
perplexed upon a matter extremely important and altogether new to me. I
went to Oxford,--the place above all others in which questions of
reason and conscience are most deeply considered, and perhaps
least satisfactorily solved. Relieved in my mind by my visit to a
distinguished ornament of that university, I felt I might indulge in a
summer holiday, and here I am."

"Ah! I understand. You had religious doubts,--thought perhaps of turning
Roman Catholic. I hope you are not going to do so?"

"My doubts were not necessarily of a religious nature. Pagans have
entertained