Is this to make any breach between you and me, Cyril? God forbid. You have retired from the race. You must not be angry with me for going in to win. I write lightly enough, but I feel deeply. I would not willingly have come between you and your chosen love; but when you fell out of the running, of your own choice, and deliberately renounced your chance, I held myself free to woo and win Miss Harefield, if I could. She was not easily won, but every day of our acquaintance made me more intensely in earnest, and I think a man could hardly desire to win so strongly as I did, and not end by winning. She is all goodness, sweetness, and nobility; and she loves this place already almost as dearly as I do. Indeed, sometimes I think it is Culverhouse that has won her, and not I. But I am content, deeply content. I am going away for a year. That is part of our compact. By that time her mourning will be over. She will throw off her black robes and shine out as a bride. All the people round about have made up their minds from the beginning that she is to be Lady Culverhouse. The village children, the toothless crones, bob to her with that intent. Am I not a man to be envied, Cyril? In our boyish days, when good Mrs. Dulcimer used to say to me, “Kenrick, you must marry an heiress,” I always answered No; for in those days I thought that marrying an heiress must mean marrying for money; but now the money comes to me joined with love so deep and true that fortune is but a feather-weight in the scale. Were my sweet one penniless I would as gladly marry her, and let Culverhouse Castle go to the dogs. This is no idle boast, Cyril. I mean it, and feel it at the bottom of my heart. And now, dear boy, be generous as you have ever been to a comrade who owns himself in all things your inferior. Write me one little line to tell me that this new happiness of mine shall make no barrier between you and me, that you are not angry with me for loving and winning the woman you might have won, but did not. Tell me this much, Cyril, and fill my cup of joy to overflowing, before I see the Wight fade into a blue speck upon the distant horizon. Your faithful friend and cousin, KENRICK CULVERHOUSE.’ Cyril sat for an hour with this letter crushed in his hand, motionless as if he had been turned into stone. She was lost to him for ever. Of his own deliberate act he had renounced her and let her go,--but the fact that he had lost her utterly had never come home to him till now. And innocent or guilty he must love her to the last beat of his heart. He was very sure of that now. CHAPTER XV. BUT AM I NOT THE NOBLER THROUGH THY LOVE?