her
coming.

His manners were the same courteous formalities. The man was torn with
emotion, and yet he greeted her with a conventional ease.

"It was so good of you, Miss Wishart, to give me a chance to come and
say good-bye. My going is such a sudden affair, that I might have had
no time to come to Glenavelin, but I could not have left without seeing
you."

The girl murmured some indistinct words. "I hope you will have a good
time and come back safely," she said, and then she was tongue-tied.

The two stood before each other, awkward and silent--two between whom no
word of love had ever been spoken, but whose hearts were clamouring at
the iron gates of speech.

Alice's face and neck were dyed crimson, as the impossible position
dawned on her mind. No word could break down the palisade, of form.
Lewis, his soul a volcano, struggled for the most calm and inept words.
He spoke of the weather, of her father, of his aunt's messages.

Then the girl held out her hand.

"Good-bye," she said, looking away from him.

He held it for a second. "Good-bye, Miss Wishart," he said hoarsely.
Was this the consummation of his brief ecstasy, the end of months of
longing? The steel hand of fate was on him and he turned to leave.

He turned when he had gone three paces and came back. The girl was
still standing by the parapet, but she had averted her face towards the
wintry waters. His step seemed to fall on deaf ears, and he stood
beside her before she looked towards him.

Passion had broken down his awkwardness. He asked the old question with
a shaking voice. "Alice," he said, "have I vexed you?"

She turned to him a pale, distraught face, her eyes brimming over with
the sorrow of love, the passionate adventurous longing which claims true
hearts for ever.

He caught her in his arms, his heart in a glory of joy.

"Oh, Alice, darling," he cried. "What has happened to us? I love you,
I love you, and you have never given me a chance to say it."

She lay passive in his arms for one brief minute and then feebly drew
back.

"Sweetheart," he cried. "Sweetheart! For I will call you sweetheart,
though we never meet again. You are mine, Alice. We cannot help
ourselves."

The girl stood as in a trance, her eyes caught and held by his face.

"Oh, the misery of things," she said half-sobbing. "I have given my
soul to another, and I knew it was not mine to give. Why, oh why, did
you not speak to me sooner? I have been hungering fo