“As a proof that you trust me fully,” she said, as the twilight shadows deepened around them, “you must let me go home alone, I wish it for a special reason. You must not tell me no,” and the pretty lips touched his bearded cheek. Adam wanted to walk with her down the pleasant road, where they had walked so often, but he saw she was in earnest, and so he suffered her to depart alone, watching her until the flutter of her light dress was lost to view. Then kneeling by the chair where she had sat so recently, he asked that the cup of joy, placed again in his eager hand, might not be wrested from him, that he might prove worthy of Anna’s love, and that no cloud should ever again come between them. CHAPTER IV. IN THE BEECH WOODS. Herbert Dunallen had waited there a long time, as he thought, and he began to grow impatient. What business had Anna to stay with that old fellow, if she did not mean to have him, and of course she did not. It would be a most preposterous piece of business for a girl like Anna to throw herself away upon such as Adam Floyd, carpenter by trade, and general repairer of things at Castlewild. Whew-ew! and Herbert whistled contemptuously, adding in a low voice, “and yet my lady mother would raise a beautiful rumpus if she knew I was about to make this little village rustic her daughter-in-law. For I am; if there’s one redeeming trait in my character, it’s being honorable in my intentions toward Anna. Most men in my position would only trifle with her, particularly when there was in the background a Mildred Atherton, dreadfully in love with them. I wonder what makes all the girls admire me so?” and the vain young man stroked his mustache complacently, just as a rapid footstep sounded near. It was Anna’s, and the next moment he held her in his arms. But she would not suffer him to keep her there, and with a quiet dignity which for an instant startled him beyond the power to speak or act, she put his arm away, and standing apart from him, told him of her resolution, and reproached him with his duplicity, asking him how he could tell Adam that he was about to be married. “Because I am,” he replied. “I am not to blame for his believing silly little Milly to be the bride elect. Won’t it be famous, though, for you to order round your former lover? I’ve engaged him for a long job, and you ought to have seen how glad he was of the work, thinking, of course, how much he should earn for you. I came near laughing in his face when he hoped I should be as happy with Miss Mildred as he expected to be with you.” “You shan’t speak so of Adam Floyd!” and Anna’s little foot beat the ground impatiently, while indignant tears glittered in her blue eyes as she again reiterated that Adam Floyd should be her husband. “Not while I live!” Herbert responded almost fiercely, for he saw in her manner a determination he had never witnessed before.