, went back to her room, rang for her maid,
dressed as for walking, and said carelessly, "If Sir Miles wants me,
I am gone to the rectory, and shall probably return by the village, so
that I shall be back about one." Towards the rectory, indeed, Lucretia
bent her way; but half-way there, turned back, and passing through the
plantation at the rear of the house, awaited Mainwaring on the bench
beneath the cedars. He was not long before he joined her. His face was
sad and thoughtful; and when he seated himself by her side, it was with
a weariness of spirit that alarmed her.

"Well," said she, fearfully, and she placed her hand on his.

"Oh, Lucretia," he exclaimed, as he pressed that hand with an emotion
that came from other passions than love, "we, or rather I, have done
great wrong. I have been leading you to betray your uncle's trust, to
convert your gratitude to him into hypocrisy. I have been unworthy of
myself. I am poor, I am humbly born, but till I came here, I was rich
and proud in honour. I am not so now. Lucretia, pardon me, pardon me!
Let the dream be over; we must not sin thus; for it is sin, and the
worst of sin,--treachery. We must part: forget me!"

"Forget you! Never, never, never!" cried Lucretia, with suppressed but
most earnest vehemence, her breast heaving, her hands, as he dropped the
one he held, clasped together, her eyes full of tears,--transformed at
once into softness, meekness, even while racked by passion and despair.

"Oh, William, say anything,--reproach, chide, despise me, for mine is
all the fault; say anything but that word 'part.' I have chosen you, I
have sought you out, I have wooed you, if you will; be it so. I cling
to you, you are my all,--all that saves me from--from myself," she added
falteringly, and in a hollow voice. "Your love--you know not what it is
to me! I scarcely knew it myself before. I feel what it is now, when you
say 'part.'"

Agitated and tortured, Mainwaring writhed at these burning words, bent
his face low, and covered it with his hands.

He felt her clasp struggling to withdraw them, yielded, and saw her
kneeling at his feet. His manhood and his gratitude and his heart all
moved by that sight in one so haughty, he opened his arms, and she fell
on his breast. "You will never say 'part' again, William!" she gasped
convulsively.

"But what are we to do?"

"Say, first, what has passed between you and my uncle."

"Little to relate; for I can repeat words, not