"I shall never marry; indeed I shall never marry," murmured Lucy, as she yielded for the moment to the passionate embrace in which Travice clasped her, and kissed away her tears of anguish. "My lot in life must be like my aunt's now, unloving and unloved." "Oh, is there no escape for us!" exclaimed Travice, wildly, as all the painful embarrassment of his position rushed over his mind. "Can we not fly together, Lucy--fly to some remote desert place, and leave care and sorrow behind us? Ere the lapse of many days, another woman expects to be my wife! Is there no way of escape for us?" None; none. The misery of Travice Arkell and his cousin was sealed: their prospects, so far as this world went, were blighted. There were no means by which he could escape the marriage that was rushing on to him with the speed of wings: no means known in the code of honour. And for Lucy, what was left but to live on unwedded, burying her crushed affections within herself, as her aunt had done?--live on, and, by the help of time, strive to subdue that love which was burning in her heart for the husband of another, rendering every moment of the years that would pass, one continued, silent agony! "The same fate--the same fate!" moaned Mildred Arkell to herself, whilst Lucy sunk into a chair and covered her pale face with her trembling hands. "I might have guessed it! Like aunt, like niece. She must go through life as I have done--and bear--and bear! Strange, that the younger brother's family, throughout two generations, should have cast their shadow for evil upon that of the elder! A blight must have fallen upon my father's race; but, perhaps in mercy, Lucy is the last of it. If I could have foreseen this, years ago, the same atmosphere in which lived Travice Arkell should not have been breathed by Lucy. The same fate! the same fate!" Lucy was sobbing silently behind her hands. Travice stood, the image of despair. Mildred turned to him. "Then you do not love Miss Fauntleroy?" "Love her! I _hate_ her!" was the answer that burst from him in his misery. "May Heaven forgive me for the false part I shall have to play!" But there was no escape for him. Mildred knew there was not; Mr. Arkell knew it; and his heart ached for the fate of this, his dearly-loved son. "My boy," he said, "I would willingly die to save you--die to secure your happiness. I did not know this sacrifice was so very bitter." Travice cast back a look of love. "You have done all you could for me; do not _you_ take it to heart. I may get to bear it in time." "Get to _bear_ it!" What a volume of expression was in the words! Mildred rose and approached Mr. Arkell. "We had better be going, William. But oh! why did you let it come to this? Why did you not make a confidante of me?" "I did not know you could help me, Mildred; indeed I did not."