While the happy company were pouring out but not exhausting their feelings, Lucy Henderson stole forth upon the upper balcony of the hotel. There was a secret trouble in her heart, which grew from minute to minute. She leaned upon the railing, and looked down the dusty street, passing in review the events of the two pregnant days, and striving to guess in what manner they would affect her coming life. She felt that she had done her simple duty: she had spoken no word which she was not ready to repeat; yet in her words there seemed to be the seeds of change. After a while the hostler brought a light carriage from the stable, and Elwood Withers stepped into the street below her. He was about to take the reins, when he looked up, saw her, and remained standing. She noticed the intensely wistful expression of his face. "Are you going, Elwood,—and alone?" she asked. "Yes," he said eagerly; and waited. "Then I will go with you,—that is, if you will take me." She tried to speak lightly and playfully. In a few minutes they were out of town, passing between the tawny fields and under the russet woods. A sweet west wind fanned them with nutty and spicy odors, and made a crisp, cheerful music among the fallen leaves. "What a delicious change!" said Lucy, "after that stifling, dreadful room." "Ay, Lucy—and think how Joseph will feel it! And how near, by the chance of a hair, we came of missing the truth!" "Elwood!" she exclaimed, "while I was giving my testimony, and I found your eyes fixed on me, were you thinking of the counsel you gave me, three weeks ago, when we met at the tunnel?" "I was!" "I knew it, and I obeyed. Do you now say that I did right?" "Not for that reason," he answered. "It was your own heart that told you what to do. I did not mean to bend or influence you in any way: I have no right." "You have the right of a friend," she whispered. "Yes," said he, "I sometimes take more upon myself than I ought. But it's hard, in my case, to hit a very fine line." "O, you are now unjust to yourself, Elwood. You are both strong and generous." "I am not strong! I am this minute spoiling my good luck. It _was_ a luck from Heaven to me, Lucy, when you offered to ride home with me, and it _is_, now—if I could only swallow the words that are rising into my mouth!" She whispered again: "Why should you swallow them?" "You are cruel! when you have forbidden me to speak, and I have promised to obey!" "After all you have heard?" she asked. "All the more for what I have heard." She took his hand, and cried, in a trembling voice: "_I_ have been cruel, in remaining blind to your nature. I resisted what would have been—what will be, if you do not turn away—my one happiness in this life! Do not speak—let _me_ break the prohibition! Elwood, dear, true, noble heart,—Elwood, I love you!" "Lucy!" And she lay upon his bosom. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXXI.