"My dearest! What can you mean? Deceive you! Treachery! Can you deem me--_me_--capable of such things. My dearest, you are overtired! And your jacket has become unbuttoned. Listen, that is the railway bell. Laura, you will not leave me with such words on your lips?" "Forgive me, Stephen." "I have done so already, dearest, and now we must part! It is very hard--but--I cannot even go with you to the platform. Someone might see us. It is for your sake, darling." "Yes, yes, I know," she said, with a sigh. "Good-bye--you will write or come to me--when?" "Soon, in a day or two," he said. "Do not be impatient. There is much to be done; my poor uncle's funeral, you know. Good-bye. See! I will stay here and watch the train off. Good-bye, dear, dear Laura!" She put her arm round him and returned his kiss, and glided away, but at the turn of the road leading to the station she turned and, holding up her hand, sent a word back to him. It was: "Remember!" Stephen waited until the train puffed out of the station, and not until it had flashed some distance did the set smile leave his face. Then, with a rather puzzled and uneasy expression, he turned and walked swiftly back to the house. His brain was in a whirl, the sudden appearance of the young girl coming on the top of the other causes of excitement bewildered him, and he felt that he had need of all his accustomed coolness. The sudden peril and danger of this accursed will demanded all his attention, and yet the thought of the girl would force itself upon him. He had met her, as she had said, in the streets, and had commenced an acquaintance which had resulted in an engagement. Alone and unprotected, save for an old grandfather, and innocent of the world, Laura Treherne had been, as it were, fascinated by the smooth, soft-spoken Stephen, from whose ready tongue vows of love and devotion rolled as easily as the scales from a serpent in spring-time. And he, for his part, was smitten by the dark eyes and quick, impulsive way of the warm-hearted girl. But there had come upon him of late a suspicion that in binding himself to marry her he had committed a false step; to-night the suspicion grew into something like certainty. To tell the truth, she had almost frightened him. Hitherto the dark eyes had ever turned on his with softened gaze of love and admiration; to-night, for the first time, the hot, passionate nature had revealed itself. The deep-toned "Remember!" which came floating down the lane as she disappeared rang unpleasantly in his ears. Had he been a true-hearted man the girl's spirit would have made her more precious in his eyes; but, coward-like, he felt that hers was a stronger nature than his, and he began to fear. "Yes," he muttered, as he unlocked the library window, and sank into a chair. "It was a weak stroke, a weak stroke! But I can't think of what is to be done now, not now!" No, for to-night all his attention must be concentrated on the will.