ill wait to-
morrow night at the edge of the plantation by which you would enter to
the column. I will not detain you; my plan can be told in ten words.'

The night after posting this missive to her he waited at the spot
mentioned.

It was a melancholy evening for coming abroad. A blusterous wind had
risen during the day, and still continued to increase. Yet he stood
watchful in the darkness, and was ultimately rewarded by discerning a
shady muffled shape that embodied itself from the field, accompanied by
the scratching of silk over stubble. There was no longer any disguise as
to the nature of their meeting. It was a lover's assignation, pure and
simple; and boldly realizing it as such he clasped her in his arms.

'I cannot bear this any longer!' he exclaimed. 'Three months since I saw
you alone! Only a glimpse of you in church, or a bow from the distance,
in all that time! What a fearful struggle this keeping apart has been!'

'Yet I would have had strength to persist, since it seemed best,' she
murmured when she could speak, 'had not your words on your condition so
alarmed and saddened me. This inability of yours to work, or study, or
observe,--it is terrible! So terrible a sting is it to my conscience
that your hint about a remedy has brought me instantly.'

'Yet I don't altogether mind it, since it is you, my dear, who have
displaced the work; and yet the loss of time nearly distracts me, when I
have neither the power to work nor the delight of your company.'

'But your remedy! O, I cannot help guessing it! Yes; you are going
away!'

'Let us ascend the column; we can speak more at ease there. Then I will
explain all. I would not ask you to climb so high but the hut is not yet
furnished.'

He entered the cabin at the foot, and having lighted a small lantern,
conducted her up the hollow staircase to the top, where he closed the
slides of the dome to keep out the wind, and placed the observing-chair
for her.

'I can stay only five minutes,' she said, without sitting down. 'You
said it was important that you should see me, and I have come. I assure
you it is at a great risk. If I am seen here at this time I am ruined
for ever. But what would I not do for you? O Swithin, your remedy--is
it to go away? There is no other; and yet I dread that like death!'

'I can tell you in a moment, but I must begin at the beginning. All this
ruinous idleness and distraction is caused by the misery