On the other side of the curtain there was a merry crowd in full career of a reel, which in those days had not gone out of fashion as now. The wild measure of the music, now quickening to lightning speed, now dropping to sedater motion, with the feet of the dancers keeping time, filled the atmosphere--a shriek would scarcely have been heard above that mirthful din. “Oh, why do you tell me to hush?” cried the girl impetuously. “Why should I mind who hears? It is not for duty or love that I obey him, but only because he has the money. Am I caring for his money? I could get my own living: it would not want much. Why do I let him do what he likes with me?” “My darling,” said the man’s voice anxiously, “don’t do any thing rash, for God’s sake! Think of our future. To displease him, to rebel, would spoil every thing. I see hope in the loneliness, for my part. Be patient, be patient, and let me work it out.” “Oh, your working out!” she cried. “What good has it done? I would cut the knot. It would be strange if we two could not get enough to live upon--or myself, if you are afraid.” He soothed her, coming closer, till the dark shadow and the white one seemed but one, and murmured caressing words in her ears: “Let us wait till the case is desperate, Lily. It is not desperate yet. I see chances in the moor and the wilderness. He is playing into our hands if he only knew it. Don’t, don’t spoil every thing by your impatience! Leave it to me, and you’ll see good will come out of it.” “I would rather take it into my own hands!” she cried. “No, dearest, no! I see--I see all sorts of good in it. Go quite cheerfully, as if you were pleased. No, your own way is best--don’t let us awake any suspicions--go as if you were breaking your heart.” “There will be no feigning in that,” she said; “I shall be breaking my heart.” “For a moment,” he said. “‘Weeping endureth for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.’” “Don’t, Ronald! I can’t bear to hear you quoting Scripture.” “Why not? I am not the devil, I hope,” he said, with a low laugh. There was a question in the girl’s hot, impatient heart, and then a quick revulsion of feeling. “I don’t know what to do, or to think; I feel as if I could not bear it,” she said, the quick tears dropping from her eyes. He wiped them tenderly away with the flourish of a white handkerchief in the dark. “Trust to me,” he said soothingly. “Be sure it is for our good, this. Listen: they are calling for you, Lily.” “Oh, what do I care? How can I go among them all, and dance as if I were as gay as the rest, when my heart is broken?”