And she held out her hand to him as she concluded. Hugh seized it, and carried it to his lips. ‘You have made me so happy!’ he exclaimed. ‘Oh, Nell, whether as friends, or as husband and wife, you are _my_ Nell now for evermore, and I will never let you go again.’ CHAPTER VII. As Nell walked back to Panty-cuckoo alone (for she would not let Hugh accompany her) she could not decide if she were pleased or sorry at what had taken place between them. Certainly she did not realise it. She was as much Lord Ilfracombe’s widow as she had been on setting out, and did not feel like the betrothed of anybody. But one thing did seem to please her--the idea of leaving England and all its sad associations behind, and going to a new country, to live amidst new surroundings and new people. Her heart had been growing faint and sick with England for a long time past. To go to South Africa; to sail on the sea; to see the wondrous vegetation that adorns it--the hedges of cacti, the bowers of orange-trees, the ostriches and the gorillas; all the wonders, in fact, of which she had read in the books which Hugh had lent her--this was what she thought of most as she wended her way slowly homewards. If an occasional remembrance struck her that they could not be enjoyed without the accompaniment of Hugh’s society she put it from her with a slight frown, and fell to thinking of the other instead. Hugh had said he would not worry her; that she should do exactly as she pleased; that he would ask nothing from her till she was ready to grant it; and Hugh was a man of his word. He would not say one thing and do another. She was quite safe with him. They would go out to Africa together, and whilst he taught the men and preached to them she would be kind and helpful to the mothers and the little black children, and show them how to make their clothes, and take care of their health, and cook their food. She pictured herself clad in a white dress, with a broad straw hat on, walking amongst her sable sisters, nursing them when they were sick, or joining in their merry-makings and festivities. She could better forget there, Nell said to herself, than in a country that reminded her at every turn of what she had lost. And Hugh was very good to her, there was no doubt of that, and would guard and protect her from further evil till her life’s end. He knew her secret, and he did not despise her for it, that was more than she could say for anybody else. Even the servants in Grosvenor Square, over whom she had reigned supreme, had shown her, but too plainly, as soon as they dared, that they considered her a little lower than themselves. She dared not think what her father and mother and Hetty would say if they were made cognisant of the truth. Nell knew her parents’ strict ideas on propriety too well. Her mother would upbraid her for having brought the first shame into their virtuous family--her father would, in all