inking avoidance of his
touch--with something like a shudder-that she glided by him into the
open drawing-room, beckoning him to follow. He halted a moment; he felt
a longing to retreat--to fly the house; his superstitious awe of her
very benefits came back to him more strongly than ever. But her help at
the moment was necessary to his very hope to escape all future need of
her, and, though with a vague foreboding of unconjecturable evil, he
stepped into the room, and the door closed on both.

BOOK XI.

CHAPTER I.

"THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE NEVER DOES RUN SMOOTH!" MAY IT NOT BE
BECAUSE WHERE THERE ARE NO OBSTACLES, THERE ARE NO TESTS TO THE
TRUTH OF LOVE? WHERE THE COURSE IS SMOOTH, THE STREAM IS CROWDED
WITH PLEASURE-BOATS. WHERE THE WAVE SWELLS, AND THE SHOALS
THREATEN, AND THE SKY LOWERS, THE PLEASURE-BOATS HAVE GONE BACK INTO
HARBOUR. SHIPS FITTED FOR ROUGH WEATHER ARE THOSE BUILT AND STORED
FOR LONG VOYAGE.

I pass over the joyous meeting between Waife and Sophy. I pass over
George's account to his fair cousin of the scene he and Hartopp had
witnessed, in which Waife's innocence had been manifested and his
reasons for accepting the penalties of guilt had been explained. The
first few agitated days following Waife's return have rolled away. He is
resettled in the cottage from which he had fled; he refuses, as before,
to take up his abode at Lady Montfort's house. But Sophy has been almost
constantly his companion, and Lady Montfort herself has spent hours with
him each day--sometimes in his rustic parlour, sometimes in the small
garden-plot round his cottage, to which his rambles are confined. George
has gone back to his home and duties at Humberston, promising very soon
to revisit his old friend, and discuss future plans.

The scholar, though with a sharp pang, conceding to Waife that all
attempt publicly to clear his good name at the cost of reversing the
sacrifice he had made must be forborne, could not, however, be induced
to pledge himself to unconditional silence. George felt that there were
at least some others to whom the knowledge of Waife's innocence was
imperatively due.

Waife is seated by his open window. It is noon; there is sunshine in the
pale blue skies--an unusual softness in the wintry air. His Bible lies
on the table beside him. He has just set his mark in the page, and
reverently closed the book. He is alone. Lady Montfort--who, since her
return from Fawle