"Oh, Mrs. Ashton!" "A little sooner or a little later, what does it matter, I try to ask myself; but parting is parting, and my heart aches sometimes. One of my aches will be leaving you." "A very minor one then," he said, with deprecation; but tears shone in his dark blue eyes. "Not a minor one. I have loved you as a son. I never loved you more, Percival, than when that letter of yours came to me at Cannes." It was the first time she had alluded to it: the letter written the evening of his marriage. Val's face turned red, for his perfidy rose up before him in its full extent of shame. "I don't care to speak of that," he whispered. "If you only knew what my humiliation has been!" "Not of that, no; I don't know why I mentioned it. But I want you to speak of something else, Val. Over and over again has it been on my lips to ask it. What secret trouble is weighing you down?" A far greater change, than the one called up by recollection and its shame, came over his face now. He did not speak; and Mrs. Ashton continued. She held his hands as he bent towards her. "I have seen it all along. At first--I don't mind confessing it--I took it for granted that you were on bad terms with yourself on account of the past. I feared there was something wrong between you and your wife, and that you were regretting Anne. But I soon put that idea from me, to replace it with a graver one." "What graver one?" he asked. "Nay, I know not. I want you to tell me. Will you do so?" He shook his head with an unmistakable gesture, unconsciously pressing her hands to pain. "Why not?" "You have just said I am dear to you," he whispered; "I believe I am so." "As dear, almost, as my own children." "Then do not even wish to know it. It is an awful secret; and I must bear it without sympathy of any sort, alone and in silence. It has been upon me for some years now, taking the sweetness out of my daily bread; and it will, I suppose, go with me to my grave. Not scarcely to lift it off my shoulders, would I impart it to _you_." She sighed deeply; and thought it must be connected with some of his youthful follies. But she loved him still; she had faith in him; she believed that he went wrong from misfortune more than from fault. "Courage, Val," she whispered. "There is a better world than this, where sorrow and sighing cannot enter. Patience--and hope--and trust in God!--always bearing onwards. In time we shall attain to it." Lord Hartledon gently drew his hands away, and turned to the window for a moment's respite. His eyes were greeted with the sight of one of his own servants, approaching the Rectory at full speed, some half-dozen idlers behind him. With a prevision that something was wrong, he said a word of adieu to Mrs. Ashton, went down, and met the man outside. Dr. Ashton, who had seen the approach, also hurried out.