He could see John look up in her face, as he knelt on the ground, and May look down and smile on his. Henderson had gone to the Dene in a most unhappy and unsettled state of mind, and this sight seemed to half-madden him. His brow grew black as night, and a bitter curse broke from his lips. "But if I swing for it, this shall not be," he muttered. Then he thought darkly of his interview with Elsie Wray the night before, and now this girl stood as an obstacle in his way. He had not dared openly to refuse to marry her, yet he never meant to do so. He feared her; she might fulfill her threat, and write or go to May Churchill, and then he knew that in that case all hope of winning May was over. "I must try to get her to go away," he thought, frowning and knitting his black brows. "But then there's that confounded old fool, her father." It was certainly a miserable enough position in which he found himself. Bound by his honor, by a hundred promises, to marry one woman, and passionately in love with another! He stood mentally cursing his folly, his fate, and the unhappy girl who had trusted him too much. But give up May he would not. There was a dogged obstinacy about this young man; the sullen, unreasonable obstinacy of a low order of mind, and when once he had determined on a thing nothing would turn him from his purpose. So gnawing his thick, red underlip beneath his brown mustache, and grinding his strong white teeth in his wrath, he watched the two below dallying on the green sward. He did not seek to interrupt them. He had already learnt to hate the smiling indifference of John Temple's manner to him, and he knew he could not rely on his own temper. No; he saw them arrange the ferns they had got in May's little basket; he saw them stand side by side, looking at the bubbling stream, and then he watched them leave the Dene and cross the rustic bridge which led to it. They were still together when he lost sight of them, and then he turned homeward, with a gloomy brow and an angry heart. As he strode on, various plans crossed his brain. But of one thing he was determined. Cost what it might, he would get rid of Elsie Wray. As he neared Stourton Grange, a substantial square stone house, standing in an extensive well-kept garden, he encountered a tall, good-looking lady in deep mourning. This was his widowed mother, and Tom Henderson was her only son. Her face brightened when she saw him, and she put out her hand when she met him, and laid it on his arm. "My dear, how lucky that I should come upon you," she said, smiling affectionately. Young Henderson's smile in return was a somewhat forced one, and her fond eyes instantly perceived this. "Something is worrying you, Tom," she said, quickly. "What is it?" Tom did not speak; something was worrying him, more than worrying him, but it was not a thing he could exactly tell his mother. She looked up fondly into his eyes.