ings, and I will not allow myself to be broken-hearted."

"You are stronger than I am," he said.

"Not stronger, but more certain. Make yourself as sure as I am, and
you, too, will be strong. Is it not so, mamma?"

"I wish it could be otherwise;--I wish it could be otherwise! If you
can give him any hope--"

"Mamma!"

"Tell me that I may come again,--in a year," he pleaded.

"I cannot tell you so. You may not come again,--not in this way. Do
you remember what I told you before, in the garden; that I loved him
better than all the world besides? It is still the same. I still love
him better than all the world. How, then, can I give you any hope?"

"But it will not be so for ever, Lily."

"For ever! Why should he not be mine as well as hers when that for
ever comes? John, if you understand what it is to love, you will say
nothing more of it. I have spoken to you more openly about this than
I have ever done to anybody, even to mamma, because I have wished to
make you understand my feelings. I should be disgraced in my own eyes
if I admitted the love of another man, after--after--. It is to me
almost as though I had married him. I am not blaming him, remember.
These things are different with a man."

She had not dropped his hand, and as she made her last speech was
sitting in her old chair with her eyes fixed upon the ground. She
spoke in a low voice, slowly, almost with difficulty; but still the
words came very clearly, with a clear, distinct voice which caused
them to be remembered with accuracy, both by Eames and Mrs Dale. To
him it seemed to be impossible that he should continue his suit after
such a declaration. To Mrs Dale they were terrible words, speaking of
a perpetual widowhood, and telling of an amount of suffering greater
even than that which she had anticipated. It was true that Lily had
never said so much to her as she had now said to John Eames, or had
attempted to make so clear an exposition of her own feelings. "I
should be disgraced in my own eyes if I admitted the love of another
man!" They were terrible words, but very easy to be understood. Mrs
Dale had felt, from the first, that Eames was coming too soon, that
the earl and the squire together were making an effort to cure the
wound too quickly after its infliction; that time should have been
given to her girl to recover. But now the attempt had been made, and
words had been forced from Lily's lips, the speaking of which would
never be forgott