“Miss Wilton,” he said, “I will be brief, for what I have to say should be so: for your sake and for my own, the sooner it is over the better. Our acquaintance has been spread over some years, but it has been limited in its character. The events of the past few months have thrown us into more intimate relation, and have resulted in creating an influence over me which time can never efface. I have come to know this--to know, Miss Wilton, that your gentle nature, no less than your other perfections, have absorbed all of passion, of love, I may ever hope to have: and this at a time when it is forced upon me that your position and birth are far removed above mine. That any hopes I might entertain, or wishes I might form, would be unjust to you, I feel; and that they are improbable of realization I cannot deny to myself. I have probed my heart, my soul, and find that change in my feelings towards you can never come. I could not, therefore, continue to visit you--to have you ever in my eyes, and know that you could never, never be mine. I could not see you often, and look upon your heavenly face, listen to the music of your words, grow faint beneath the soft gaze of your quiet, tender eyes, and content myself with that bliss without seeking to raise in your heart the same love that burned in mine. I tried to induce myself to do this. I tried to believe that I could remain near you, watch over you as a guardian spirit, and be happy in the thought that I could shield you from danger or from sorrow, that I could see calmly another wear the gem I would give almost existence to possess. But, oh! Flora, I am but human, miserably, weakly human. My love is selfish, at least in this. I cannot look upon you in the possession of another. So I have come to the determination to leave this country for ever, and, in some distant land, struggle with my hopeless passion as best I may.” He paused for a moment, and his lip quivered with the strong emotion which convulsed his frame. He pressed his trembling lip with his teeth, and then went on-- “I had intended to have spared myself the pang of parting with you--for--ever--but it was not to be. I came down here to gaze my last upon the roof that sheltered you; to obtain, if possible, one last look upon your dear form; to breathe a prayer for your eternal happiness----” “I cannot bear it!” cried Flora, springing to her feet. She burst into a passion of tears, and flung herself upon his neck. “You must not go, Hal!” she cried with intense excitement, “you must not, shall not leave me; I should break my heart! I should die if you were parted from me!” He pressed her with passionate ardour to his breast His heart wras too full to utter a word. Nothing disturbed the stillness of the quiet air but the gentle warbling of a lonely bird, the plaintive chant of the running stream, and Flora’s low sobbing. CHAPTER VII.--MARK WILTON. Think not I love him, though I ask for him;