"Leslie, I can hardly find words to put this strong presentiment in; but I feel that if we part now--like this--that before you win the honors you covet, some terrible bar of fate will come between us and sunder us so widely that we shall never meet again." The low, impressive words fell heavily on his heart, chilling it like ice. How strangely they sounded from his little Bonnibel, who but an hour ago was as gay as a butterfly in the sunshine. Now the very elements of tragedy were in her voice and face. A jealous pang struck him to the heart. "Bonnibel," he said, quietly, "do you mean that your uncle would marry you to someone else before I came back to claim you?" "I do not know," she said; "I hardly think my feeling was as clearly defined as that. It was a dim, intangible something I could not fathom, and took no peculiar shape. But he might try to do that, for, oh, Leslie! Uncle Francis is terribly angry with us both." "I am quite aware of that, my dearest," he answered, bitterly. "But, Bonnibel, this presentiment of yours troubles me. Perhaps I am foolish, but I have always been a half-way believer in these things." "Leslie, I believe it firmly," she said, choking back a sob that rose in her throat; "Uncle Francis will dig some impassable gulf between us. When we part to-night, it will be forever." Hiding her face on his shoulder she sobbed aloud. Poor little bonny bird! she had been soaring in the blue ether, her fair plumage bathed in sunshine all her life. Now her bright wings were clipped, and she walked in the shadow. "My love has only brought you sorrow," he said, regretfully. "No, no; you must not think so," she answered, earnestly. "It seems to me, Leslie, that I have never fully lived until this summer, when I met and loved you. Life has seemed to have a fuller, deeper meaning; the flowers have been sweeter, the sunshine fairer, the sound of the sea has seemed to have a voice that spake to me of happiness. If you had gone away from me with your love untold I should have missed something from my life forever. You do not guess what a wealth of love is in my heart, Leslie. It is not your love that brings me sorrow; it is the dreadful, dreadful parting with you!" He pressed her hand in silence. A terrible temptation had come to him. He was struggling mutely against it, trying to fight it down in all honor. But love and jealousy fought madly against white-handed honor. "If you leave her now, in her beauty and youth," whispered jealousy, "some other man will see that she is fair. She will forget you and wed another." "Make her your own _now_," whispered love.