“Then it never need be known that you made this low marriage!” Mrs. Fordham exclaimed, in a tone of intense relief. “Mother!”—and starting up from her crouching posture, Heloise’s eyes flashed indignantly as she said,—“do you think I am ashamed of my love for Abelard, or that I will consent to act a lie all my life, even if I could do so without detection, which I cannot, for, mother, I have not told you all; the dreadful part is to come. I—I—oh! I can’t speak it. You _must_ know what I mean.” Heloise was at her mother’s feet again, her hands clasped together nervously, and her breath coming in quick, panting gasps, as she whispered the dreadful thing she had to tell, and then fell forward on her face, fainting entirely away. For an instant Mrs. Fordham sat like one stunned by a heavy blow, powerless to move or speak; but her ever-active, far-seeing mind was busy, and before she stooped to raise her unconscious daughter, she had come to a decision. All her hopes for the future should not be thus blasted. Her daughter should yet ride in the high places of the land, and should never be known to the world as the widow of a carpenter. She repeated the last words sneeringly, and then lifting up her child bore her to the window, where the cool evening air could blow upon her. It was not long ere Heloise came back to consciousness, but her face still wore the same white, frightened look it had put on when she whispered her secret. Ere long, however, the pallid hue changed to a scarlet flush as she listened to her mother’s plan, and her fixed purpose to carry it out. They were to leave Hampstead at once and go back to England, where in London they would for a time live in obscurity, unknown to any one save those with whom they were compelled to come in contact. “Nobody here will believe in your marriage,” she said, as she saw Heloise about to speak, and guessed that it was to oppose her. “Your certificate is lost.” “Yes, but Mr. Calvert must have a record; he would remember,” Heloise said, faintly; and her mother replied: “Possibly; but I do not care to have him remember. I do not wish your marriage known, and it shall not be. Hear me, Heloise, it shall not be, I say.” “But I cannot live a lie,” the poor girl moaned, as she rocked to and fro, with her head bent down, and her whole attitude one of great mental distress. “You forget that you have been living a lie these three months past. It is rather late now to make it a matter of conscience, and I shall not listen to such foolishness. So far as this you may be truthful. In England you may take his name. Lyle is better than Fordham, and for a time you must of course pass for a married woman; after that,—I have not decided.”