There was another decision he reached then and there, and that was, that he would lose no time in untying the knot between them which had been so hastily tied; and then, with the fortune which would be hers because the will of the elder Dinsmore had thus been complied with, she would be free to wed this lover who would be so heartbroken over her loss. For, of course, he must have been wedding her for love alone, it being well known all about where she lived that she would be penniless if she did not marry the heir of Blackheath Hall. Yes, he would divorce Jess as soon as the law could accomplish it; that would be a shade better than to shuffle off the mortal coil to set her free, after giving her the right to the Dinsmore fortune. In his calculations the bare possibility of another lover had never for an instant occurred to him. All this changed his plans of the immediate future very materially. He had been intending to announce their marriage as soon as they returned to the farmhouse, but under the present turn of affairs, he concluded that secrecy for the present was best. “You are very angry with me!” sobbed the girl, wretchedly, and these words aroused him from the deep reverie into which he had fallen. “You have stabbed me at my weakest point, little one,” he answered, very huskily, “reopened a wound which I have been endeavoring valiantly to heal. Of all things, I cannot endure a girl who throws off one lover coolly for another. I despise of all things, of all women, I mean, a jilt!” Ah! if Jess had but told him the exact truth at that moment what a lifetime of pain would have been spared her; had but explained to him that she was fairly forced into the betrothal with that other one by Mrs. Bryson, the old housekeeper, because that other lover represented himself to be John Dinsmore, the heir of Blackheath Hall. Ah! what investigations would have been instigated at once, and what cruel wrong averted! But fate’s thread was strangely tangled, and they were intended to play the bitter tragedy out to the end, and suffer all the sorrows that fell to their lot. “Owing to the existence of these difficulties which have just arisen we must keep our marriage for the present a most profound secret,” he said, slowly; “say that you will do this, little Jess?” “I will do whatever you think wisest and best,” murmured the girl, vainly struggling to keep the tears back from her dark, wistful eyes. “That is right,” he replied, hurriedly. “See, they are looking for you, as usual. Enter the house as though nothing unusual had transpired. You must go with Lawyer Abbot when he comes to take you away with him to--to the Trevalyns of New York; and I will communicate to you after you have reached there, in, say, a week or a fortnight at most, the course our future is to take. Until that time, adieu, little Jess.”