He held her hand tight in his arm; his heart was beating vaguely with many half-formed impulses. But even if anything like love had been ripe in him, it would have seemed profanation at that moment. He only held her hand closer to his side where his heart was stirring so strangely, and said-- “You make me almost happy--if it was possible to be happy in going away. I suppose I shall never come back--absolutely back here, to Pitcomlie; but we shall see each other? It is not a parting, this--only for the moment? say you think so, to cheer me.” “I hope so!” she said. She was franker, more open than he was; but she was much less agitated. It was to her an easy thing to believe in this future meeting, because she wished for it without any passionate desire. But he longed for assurance, and doubted even while he affirmed; for it seemed to him as if his whole future was dark and uncertain till that moment should come. “How good it is to hear you say so!” he said. “If you hope for it, it will come to pass. I have not so much faith in my own prayers.” “Alas! the things I have hoped for have not come to pass,” she said, with a little outburst of sorrow. And then, when her brief fit of weeping was over (he would have liked so to have taken her into his arms, to have had her sob on his breast--but dared not), she looked up to him again with a faint smile. “I have got so used to cry and show you all my weakness,” she said; “how I shall miss you! It is luxury to have some one by who will not be impatient of one’s tears.” This, however, was getting too much for poor Fanshawe; his heart was melting in his breast. It was all he could do to keep from some foolish demonstration or other. He had put his other hand on hers where it lay on his arm; he bent over her, stooping his head towards her--almost carried away by the tide of emotion in him. He felt that to save himself, and to save the sanctity of this last meeting, he must fly as long as he was able. “May I say good-bye to you here?” he said, trembling; “I must go to-morrow. You will write to me about everything? about Milly, and Mr. Charles--and the book--and about Isabell, if you find out anything more; but chiefly, and above all, about yourself--you promise? Then good-bye, and God bless you; you will say the same to me?” “God bless you!” she said, moved by his emotion, looking at him with tears still in her eyes; “God bless you, dear friend, and good-bye.” He stood a moment irresolute, hanging over her; holding both her hands--not knowing very well what he did. If there had been light enough to show his face, they never could have parted so. But he knew he was not seen, and felt as if he had concealed his feelings. At that last moment he stooped suddenly, and kissed her hair just where it was parted; and then dropped her hands and disappeared--she could not tell where. CHAPTER XXII.