"Well, but," begins he again; and then he sees something in the little, pale, but determined face gazing pathetically up into his that deters him from further argument. She will be quite true to her word once pledged, he knows that; and though the knowledge is bitter to him, yet he respects her so highly for it, that he vows to himself he will no longer strive to tempt her from her sense of right. Lifting one of her hands, he lays it upon his lips, as though to keep himself by her dear touch from further speech. "Never mind," he says, caressing her soft fingers tenderly. "We may be able to baffle him yet, and even if not, we can be happy together in spite of him. Can we not. I know _I_ can." Drawing her closer to him, he whispers gently, "A smile of thine shall make my bliss!" After a while it occurs to them that they ought to return to the drawing-room and the prosaic humdrumedness of everyday life. It is wonderful how paltry everything has become in their sight, how it is dwarfed and stunted by comparison with the great light of love that is surrounding them. All outside this mist seems lost in a dull haze, seems pale, expressionless. Opening the library-door with slow, reluctant fingers, they almost stumble against a figure crouching near the lintel. This figure starts into nervous life at their appearance, and, muttering something inaudible in a heavy indistinct tone, shuffles away from them, and is lost to sight round a corner of the corridor. "Surely that was old Gregory," says Dulce, after a surprised pause. "So it was," returns Roger, "and, _as_ usual, as drunk as a fiddler." "Isn't it dreadful of him?" says Dulce. "Do you know, Roger, his manner is so strange of late, that I verily believe that man is going mad." "Well, he won't have far to go, at any rate," says Mr. Dare, cheerfully. "He has been on the road, I should say, a considerable time." CHAPTER XXVI. "Let the dead past bury its dead."--LONGFELLOW. JUST at first it is so delightful to Dulce to have Roger making actual love to her, and so delightful to Roger to be able to make it, that they are content with their present and heedless of their future. Not that everything goes quite smoothly with them, even now. Little skirmishes, as of old, arise between them, threatening to dim the brightness of their days. It was, indeed, only yesterday that a very serious rupture was near taking place, all occasioned by a difference of opinion about the respective merits of Mr. Morton's and Messrs. Crosse & Blackwell's pickles; Dulce declaring for the former, Roger for the latter. Fortunately, Mark Gore coming into the room smoothed matters over and drew conversation into a more congenial channel, or lamentable consequences might have ensued.