“Tell her from me,” he said, “that I will hold her to it as long as I live, and she must beware how she breaks her word, pledged so solemnly.” And that was all the satisfaction Godfrey got. His father would not listen to his love for Gertie, and insisted upon his returning to his allegiance to Alice: “Never, while I have my senses. I do not dislike Allie as a friend, but I shall never make her my wife. It is Gertie, or nobody,” Godfrey said. And so the interview which had lasted a long time ended, and just as the clock was striking half-past ten a white-faced young man, with lips firmly compressed, and a look of determination in his eyes, went rapidly down the avenue, leaving behind a whiter-faced man, who had said to him: “If Gertie breaks her word and marries you, remember it will be disinheritance.” Now to one as madly in love as Godfrey, disinheritance did not seem so very dreadful. It was not half as bad as losing Gertie, and as he walked away from the Hill he thought how pleasant it would be to work for Gertie, and deny himself, if need be, that she might live in comfort. There was his cottage; disinheritance could not take that from him, for it was his own, and he had the deed. They could live there for awhile on almost nothing, and should get along somehow. It was the same old story, always new, of young people with more love in their hearts than money in their purses. “They would get along somehow;” and Godfrey’s spirits were very light, and his cheery whistle sounded through the still night air as he drew near the summer-house, where Gertie was to wait for him. CHAPTER XLVII. WAITING.