He was pale almost to ghastliness, and her eyes drooped, as if a weight oppressed their full white lids when they met his fixed gaze. However, he took her proffered hand mechanically, and then she tried to talk gaily, not knowing what she said; but the talk proved a miserable failure. How he longed to take her in his arms once again; to kiss her glossy brown hair, her damask cheek, her rosy lips; to implore her to love him still and share his humble future! But no; it would be more cowardly to take any advantage then of any passing remorse she might feel; and better was it, perhaps, that she should marry this other man, if he really loved her, and forget--if she could--that there was such a poor fellow as Robert Wodrow in the secluded world she would leave behind her; and he said something of this to her in faltering accents, and for a time the heart of Ellinor faltered too--but for a time only. The new vision was too bright to fade quickly away! 'I am eating my heart out with sorrow and uncertainty--I am sick of suspense, Ellinor,' he said, after a pause; 'our happy meetings, our walks, our talks, our plans for the future--are they all as nothing to you now, Ellinor?' 'That is it, Robert,' she said, making a prodigious effort to be calm and cool; 'you see, Robert, we have been so much together.' 'All our days, Ellinor!' 'Too much so--yes, all our days; so it never struck me that--that----' 'What, darling?' 'You cared for me in _that_ way.' 'Indeed! Your doubts come too late.' 'Or I might have learned to care too,' she said, with confusion. 'You did love me, and care for me too, before that fellow Sleath came among us,' said Robert, gloomily; for it seemed hard indeed that, after the happiness of their boyhood and girlhood, after all the budding hopes of riper years, under this man's new and hateful influence, she made light of him and his love--mocked him, it seemed, laughed at him for being so foolish to care for her 'in that way,' as she phrased it. 'Robert,' said she, after a pause, 'why be so angry about a little flirtation?' She spoke deprecatingly, and her face wore a sickly smile. 'To flirt was never your wont, and I have read that the essence of flirting is that it is a stolen pleasure, the future results of which cannot be foreseen.' 'It would be tame between such old friends as you and I, Robert.' 'Tame indeed--and unnatural,' said he, huskily. His eyes, which hitherto had been fixed upon her colourless face, now fell upon the ornament she was wearing--an ornament he had never seen before; and from its apparent value his heart too surely foreboded who the donor was; yet he disdained to refer to it, though he said, upbraidingly,