"You are helping me more than I can say," he answered, impulsively. "When with you I have a feeling of rest--of peace. And that's what I want." Which avowal brought a hot blush again to Miss Katrine's cheek and a curious thrill somewhere round about her heart. * * * * * Time went on. Before much of it had elapsed, they were in love with one another for ever and for ever, with that first love that comes but once in a lifetime. That is, in secret; it was not betrayed or spoken of by either of them, or intended to be. Mr. Reste, Barrister-at-law (and briefless), could as soon have entertained thoughts of setting up a coach-and-four, as of setting up a wife. He had not a ghost of the means necessary at present, he saw not the smallest chance yet of attaining them. Years and years and years might go by before that desirable pinnacle in the social race was reached; and it might never be reached at all. It would be the height of dishonour, as he considered, to persuade Katrine Barbary into an engagement, which might never be fulfilled. How could he condemn her to wear out her heart and her life and her days in loneliness, sighing for him, never seeing him--he at one end of the world, she at the other? for that's how, lover-like, he estimated the distance between this and the metropolis. So he never let a word of his love escape him, and he guarded his looks, and treated Katrine as his little cousin. And she? Be you sure, she was as reticent as he. An inexperienced young maiden, scrupulously and modestly brought up, she kept her secret zealously. It is true she could not help her blushes, or the tell-tale thrilling of her soft voice; but Edgar Reste was not obliged to read them correctly. Likely enough he could penetrate, as the weeks wore on, some of the ins and outs in the private worth of Mr. Barbary. In fact, he _did_ do so. He found that gentleman rather addicted to going abroad at night when reasonable people were in bed and asleep. Mr. Barbary gave him his views upon the subject. Poaching, he maintained, was a perfectly legitimate and laudable occupation. "It's one to be proud of, instead of the contrary," he asserted, one September day, when they were in the gun-room together. "_Proud of_, Edgar." "For a gentleman?" laughed Mr. Reste, who invariably made light of the subject. And he glanced at his host curiously from between his long dark eyelashes and straight, fine eyebrows; at the dark, passive, handsome face, at the long slender fingers, busy over the lock of his favourite gun. "For a gentleman certainly. Why should common men usurp all its benefit? The game laws are obnoxious laws, and it behoves us to set them at naught." Another amused laugh from Mr. Reste.