Hilary walked on in a dazed, bewildered way, determined only that she would keep outwardly calm, and hearing all that the stranger said, though as if from a great distance. It seemed to her that the world had suddenly collapsed, and for the first time she fully understood what perfect confidence she had hitherto felt in Gabriel’s constancy. Only by a great effort could she keep up the absolutely necessary show of interest in her companion’s talk. At length she caught sight of the Vicar coming out of a cottage at a little distance, and awoke to the realisation that she had better overtake him before gaining the village street. “See, Don!” she cried to the dog, “your master!” Don bounded on and soon attracted the Vicar’s notice. He turned at once, and perceiving Hilary and the stranger, walked rapidly towards them. “I must ask your pardon, sir,” said Norton, bowing low. “I waited to apologise to your niece for the discourtesy of my men, and begged her to let me wait upon you at the Vicarage. I am but newly appointed Governor of the Canon Drome garrison--my name is Lionel Norton.” “Why then, sir, I heard of you many years ago, for I think you wedded the Lady Lucy Powell,” said the Vicar, genially. Hilary, who had not even glanced at Norton since their first encounter at the gate, now looked at him searchingly, and instantly noted the lines of pain about his lips. The pain was genuine--it at once drew her to him. “My wife died when we had but been wedded a year,” he replied, and his musical voice faltered a little. The Vicar had not heard of this, but his sympathy and his warm praise of Lady Lucy’s gentle sweetness of character seemed to touch Norton. “Will you not come in and dine with us?” he said, in his hospitable way. For a moment the Colonel hesitated. “I fear I cannot accept your kind invitation,” he said at length, with a swift glance at Hilary. “But if you will permit me I will call on you another day.” And at the eastern gate of the churchyard they parted, Norton to call for his horse at the “Bell,” the Vicar to see a parishioner who had come home crippled from the war, and Hilary to hasten to her room at the Vicarage, where at last she could permit the tears which had half choked her to over-flow. All was indeed over--Gabriel’s love was a thing of the past! CHAPTER XXXII. “_Strafford had offered his brain and arm to establish a system which would have been the negation of political liberty. Laud had sought to train up a generation in habits of thought which would have extinguished all desire for political liberty_.” S. R. Gardiner. _History of the Great Civil War,_ Vol. II.