"I do not think I have done all this," says Molly, with a little gasping sigh; "but if I have I regret it. I repent it. I pray your forgiveness." "And I will grant it on one condition. Swear you will be my wife." She does not answer. He is so vehement that she fears to provoke him further; yet nothing but a decided refusal can be given. She raises her head and regards him with a carefully-concealed shudder, and as she does so Luttrell's fair, beautiful face--even more true than beautiful, his eyes so blue and earnest, his firm but tender mouth--rises before her. She thinks of his devotion, his deep, honest love, and without thinking any further she says, "No," with much more decided emphasis than prudence would have permitted. "'No!'" repeats he, furiously. "Do you still defy me? Are you then so faithful to the memory of the man who cast you off? Have you, perhaps, renewed your engagement with him? If I thought that,--if I was sure of that---- Speak, and say if it be so." The strain is too great. Molly's brave heart fails her. She gives a little gasping cry, and with it her courage disappears. Raising her face in mute appeal to the bare trees, to the rushing, comfortless wind, to the murky sky, she bursts into a storm of tears. "Oh, if my brother were but alive," cries she, in passionate protest, "you would not dare treat me like this! Oh, John, John, where are you? It is I, your Molly Bawn. _Why_ are you silent?" Her sobs fall upon the chilly air. Her tears drop through her fingers down upon the brown-tinged grass, upon a foolish frozen daisy that has outlived its fellows,--upon her companion's heart! With a groan he comes to his senses, releases her, and, moving away, covers his face with his hands. "Don't do that," he says. "Stop crying. What a brute I am! Molly, Molly, be silent, I desire you. I am punished enough already." Hardly daring to believe herself free, and dreading a relapse on Philip's part, and being still a good deal over-strung and frightened, Miss Massereene sobs on very successfully, while even at this moment secretly reproaching herself in that she did not pocket her pride half an hour ago, and give way to the tears that have had such a fortunate effect. Just at this juncture, Luttrell, clearing a stile that separates him from them, appears upon the scene. His dismay on seeing Molly in tears almost obliterates the displeased amazement with which he regards Philip's unexpected appearance. "Molly," he calls out to her, even from the distance, some undefined instinct telling him she will be glad of his presence. And Molly, hearing him, raises her head, and without a word or cry runs to him, and flings herself into the fond shelter of his arms.