raised to his face were haggard and weary with pain.

"There is nothing for it but parting, Lance," she said. "I thought we
could be friends, but it is not possible; we have loved each other too
well."

"We need not part now," he said; "let us think it over; life is very
long; it will be hard to live without the sunlight of your presence,
Leone, now that I have lived in it so long. Let us think it over. Do you
know what I wanted to ask you last evening?"

"No," she replied, "what was it?"

"A good that you may still grant me," he said. "We may part, if you wish
it, Leone. Leone, let us have one happy day before the time comes.
Leone, you see how fair the summer is, I want you to spend one day with
me on the river. The chestnuts are all in flower--the whole world is
full of beauty, and song, and fragrance; the great boughs are dipping
into the stream, and the water-lilies lie on the river's breast. My dear
love and lost love, come with me for one day. We may be parted all the
rest of our lives, come with me for one day."

Her face brightened with the thought. Surely for one day they might be
happy; long years would have to pass, and they would never meet. Oh, for
one day, away on the river, in the world of clear waters, green boughs
and violet banks--one day away from the world which had trammeled them
and fettered them.

"You tempt me," she said, slowly. "A day with you on the river. Ah, for
such a pleasure as that I would give twenty years of my life."

He did not answer her, because he dared not. He waited until his heart
was calm and at rest again, then he said:

"Let us go to-morrow, Leone, no one knows what twenty-four hours may
bring forth. Let us go to-morrow, Leone. Rise early. How often we have
gone out together while the dew lay upon the flowers and grass. Shall it
be so?"

The angel of prudence faded from her presence as she answered, "Yes."
Knowing how she loved him, hearing the old love story in his voice,
reading it in his face, she would have done better had she died there in
the splendor of her beauty and the pain of her love than have said,
"Yes." So it was arranged.

"It will be a beautiful day," said Lord Chandos. "I am a capital rower,
Leone, as you will remember. I will take you as far as Medmersham Abbey:
we will land there and spend an hour in the ruins; but you will have to
rise early and drive down to the river side. You will not mind that."

"I shall mind nothing that brings me to