“This then,” thought Vivian, “is the secret! This Sir George, confound him! is the lover—the beloved!” And for three whole days after this wise conclusion did our hero sulk in silent misery; and for three whole days did the wondering Margaret weep, when alone, for his waywardness, and, when in his presence, laugh more gaily than ever, or curl her sweet lip, in maiden pride, at his moody replies to her attempts at conversation. The third day was the sabbath, and as they walked home from church, a fine-looking young man passed on horseback, and bowed, with an air of “empressement,” to Miss Walton and her father. “He’s a confounded handsome fellow! don’t you think so, Vivian?” said Mr. Walton. “Who, sir?” said Vivian with an abstracted air. “The young man, who just passed, Sir George Elwyn. He is to dine with us, to-day.” Vivian started at the name and gazed earnestly at Margaret, who, of course, blushed as was her wont. That blush decided him. “I was right!” he exclaimed internally, and making a hurried excuse to leave them, he hastened by a shorter path to the house—wrote a note, in which, disclaiming dissimulation, he only begged his kind host to forgive his abrupt departure from the Hall, left it on his dressing-table, mounted his horse, and galloped back to town, thinking himself the most miserable fellow in existence. CHAPTER IV. “What the deuse!” exclaimed Mr. Walton, as he read the farewell billet of our hero—“Margaret,”—and he suddenly looked enlightened on the subject—“I hope _you_ are not the cause of this!” “_I_, sir! _I_ the cause?” replied the conscious girl, with a very demure look of surprise—“What have _I_ done?” Her father could not well say _what_ she had done, so he said nothing; but he looked annoyed and sorry, and he found fault with the dinner. That night Vivian Russell had a strange, and, as he thought, a very provoking dream. He thought he was toiling over brake and brier, in pursuit of Margaret’s paper basket, which hovered like a “will o’ the wisp” before him, and enticed him into all sorts of dangers, up hill and down, through bog and stream, till at last, when, on the top of a high mountain, he thought it just within his grasp, an angel-face gleamed for a moment from a low cloud close by, and a white arm, reaching out, snatched the treasure from his outstretched hand, and vanished with it from his sight! For a week afterwards, our hero, wretched and restless, tried hard to forget the maiden and her folly, as he chose to term it; but her image would not leave him. Sleeping or waking, he saw her destroying, to conceal yet preserve, the billet-doux of the happy and handsome Sir George Elwyn.