bsolutely refused to have anything
to do with the matter, says I need expect nothing further from him, and we
have parted for good and all."

"Oh, Robert!" It was almost a cry from Lady Merrenden.

Robert put his arms round me, and his face changed to radiance.

"Well, I don't care; what does it matter? A few places and thousands in
the dim future--the loss of them is nothing to me if I only have my
Evangeline now."

"But, Robert dearest," Lady Merrenden said, "you can't possibly live
without what he allows you--what have you of your own? About eighteen
hundred a year, I suppose, and you know, darling boy, you are often in
debt. Why, he paid five thousand for you as lately as last Easter. Oh,
what is to be done?" and she clasped her hands.

I felt as if turned to stone. Was all this divine happiness going to slip
from my grasp? Yes, it looked like it, for I could never drag Robert into
poverty and spoil his great future.

"He can't leave away Torquilstone, and those thousands of profitless
acres," Lady Merrenden went on; "but, unfortunately, all the London
property is at his disposition. Oh, I must go and talk to him!"

"No," said Robert. "It would not be the least use, and would look as if we
were pleading." His face had fallen to intense sadness as Lady Merrenden
spoke of his money.

"Darling," he said, in a broken voice. "No, it is true it would not be
fair to make you a beggar. I should be a cad to ask you. We must think of
some way of softening my brother after all."

Then I spoke.

"Robert," I said, "if you were only John Smith I would say I would
willingly go and live with you in a cottage, or even in a slum; but you
are not, and I would not for _anything in the world_ drag you down out of
what is your position in life. That would be a poor sort of love. Oh, my
dear," and I clasped tight his hand, "if everything fails, then we must
part and you must forget me."

He folded me in his arms, and we heard the door shut. Lady Merrenden had
left us alone. Oh, it was anguish and divine bliss at the same time the
next half-hour.

"I will never forget you, and never in this world will I take another
woman, I swear to God!" he said, at the end of it. "If we must part, then
life is finished for me of all joy."

"And for me, too, Robert!"

We said the most passionate vows of love to each other, but I will not
write them here; there is another locked book where I keep them--the book
of my soul.

"Would it b