"How quiet you are!" Molly says, at length awakening to the fact of her
lover's dumbness. "What are you thinking about?"

"You, of course," he answers, with a rather joyless smile. "I have
received my marching orders. I must join my regiment in Dublin next
Saturday."

"And this is Tuesday!" Aghast at the terrible news. "Oh, Teddy! Could
they not have left us together for the few last days that remain to
us?"

"It appears they could not," replies he, with a prolonged and audible
sigh.

"I always said your colonel was a bear," says Miss Massereene,
vindictively.

"Well, but you see, he doesn't know how matters stand; he never heard
of _you_," replies Luttrell, apologetically.

"Well, he ought to know; and even if he did, he would do it all the
more. Oh, Teddy! dear Teddy!"--with a sudden change of tone, thoroughly
appreciated by one individual at least,--"what shall I do without you?"

CHAPTER XXXI.

"When we two parted in silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted, to sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek, and cold, colder thy kiss."

--Byron.

They have wandered down once more by the river-side where first he told
her how he loved her. To-night, again the moon is shining brightly,
again the stream runs rippling by, but not, as then, with a joyous
love-song; now it sounds sad as death, and "wild with all regret," as
though mourning for the flowers--the sweet fond forget-me-nots--that
used to grace its banks.

Their hands are clasped, his arm is round her; her head drooping,
dejected (unlike the gay capricious Molly of a few months back), is
leaning on his breast.

Large tears are falling silently, without a sob, down her white cheeks,
because to-night they say their last farewell. It is one of those
bitter partings, such as "press the life from out young hearts" and
makes them doubt the good that this world conceals even in the very
core of its disappointments.

"I feel as though I were losing all," says Molly, in a despairing tone.
"First John, and now--you. Oh, how difficult a thing is life! how hard,
how cruel!" Yet only a month before she was singing its praises with
all the self-confidence of foolish ignorant youth.

"While I am alive you do not lose me," he answers, pressing his lips to
her soft hair and brow. "But I am unhappy about you, my own: at the
risk of letting you think me importunate, I would ask you again to
reconsider your decision, and let me know how it i