"Well, the trouble's over, and I've won," he said, as he walked on. "Has the game been worth the candle? She's very nice, and the old folks will come down handsomely, of course, and I shall have to go up to town to this precious office. Hang the office! Well, it won't be so dull as it is down here." "Little wench is late," he muttered, gazing at his watch, and yawning. "Hang it, I've smoked too much to-day. Wonder whether she'll smell my breath. She's a nice little lassie after all. Ha, ha, ha! Poor old Luke Ross--what a phiz he will pull when he finds that he has been cut out! There she comes!" He hastened his steps as he caught sight of Sage, and the next minute he was at her side. "Why, Sage," he said, "did I startle you?" "Yes," she said, trembling. "No, I am not startled;" and her blushing confusion made her look so charming that a good deal of Cyril Mallow's indifference was swept away. "If I had only known that you were coming to our place last night!" he said, tenderly. "Didn't you go away on purpose to avoid me?" she said, with a touch of coquetry. "Go away? For shame!" he said. "When I have thought of nothing, dreamed of nothing but you, Sage, all these long weary days. Oh, my darling, now the difficulties are all over what am I to say?" In her happiness and excitement there was a strange mixture of yielding and confusion in Sage's manner; she glanced at him proudly, her heart bounding with joy at his every word, and then she felt that she was being unmaidenly, and tried to be more reserved. But she could not help his drawing her hand through his arm, and though she tried to pull it away from his grasp, he would hold it; and at last, ready to cry hysterically--ready to laugh with joy, she walked on by his side, feeling happier than she had ever felt before. For Cyril Mallow knew how to woo, and as he lowered his voice to a low, impassioned tone, he told her of his love, and how he was coming straight on with her to the farm. That he was the happiest of men, and that if she was cold and distant to him now it would break his heart. With all this breathed tenderly in her ears by one she really loved, it was no wonder that she grew less distant, and ceased to try and draw her hand away. Indeed, somehow poor Sage did not in her agitation seem to know it when a strong, firm arm was passed round her waist in the narrow part of the lane, down between the banks, where no one was likely to see. All was a delicious dream, full of oblivion of the past, till in one short moment, as with head drooping towards Cyril Mallow, she hung upon his words, her heart throbbing, her humid eyes soft and liquid with the light of her young love, she felt turned, as it were, to stone, and stood with parted lips, staring at Luke Ross at the turning as he reeled against the hedge. PART ONE, CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN. LUKE ROSS'S RECEPTION.