y.

'I am glad, at least, that you think I am doing right.'

'I did not say so.'

'Pardon me;' and here Cyril did try to get a glimpse of her face, for
something in her tone baffled him. 'You, who know all, must of course
approve my conduct. If I stayed here I could not answer for myself; it
is better--safer--that I should go; though wherever I am,' here his
voice trembled with exquisite tenderness, 'I must always love you.'

'Then in that case you had better remain.'

Audrey tried to shield her face as she spoke, but he had seen a little
tremulous smile flit over her features, and she could not hide her
dimple. What could she mean? Was he fooling himself--dreaming? The next
moment he had dropped on one knee beside her, and was begging her, with
tears in his eyes, to look at him.

'This is a matter of life and death to me,' he implored, compelling her
by the very strength of his will to turn her blushing face to him. 'Miss
Ross--Audrey'--his tone almost amounting to awe--'you cannot mean that
you really care for me?'

'I am afraid I do care too much to let you go,' she half whispered. But
as he grasped her hands, and looked at her almost incredulously: 'Why is
it so impossible? I think in a way I have long cared.'

But even then he did not seem satisfied.

'It is not pity--you are sure of that? It is nothing that my mother has
said? Audrey, if I thought that, I would rather die than take advantage
of you. Tell me, dear'--and the pleading of his eyes was almost more
than she could bear--'you would not so humiliate me?'

'No, Cyril, I would not.'

His name came so naturally to her, she hardly knew she said it; but a
gleam of joy passed over the young man's face as he heard it, and the
next moment he drew her towards him.

Audrey took it all quite simply; she listened to her young lover's
passionate protestation of gratitude, half shyly, half happily. The
reverence with which he treated her touched her profoundly; he did not
overpower her with the force of his affection. After the first few
moments of agitated feeling he had quieted himself and her.

'I must not try you too much,' he said. 'If I were to talk for an hour I
could never make you understand how happy I am. It is a new existence;
it is wonderful. Yesterday I was so tired of my life, and
to-day--to-day, Audrey----'

'I am happy, too,' she said, in a soft, contented voice. 'All these
weeks have been so miserable; I seemed to miss you so--but you