This charm Flora discovered in Harry Vivian without knowing truly what was its real effects upon her; it elevated him into the first place in her estimation so gradually and naturally, that she did not detect the truth, although she found herself almost constantly thinking of him, dreaming of him, wishing that he would come again to see her even as soon as he had departed. But when she met him in the glen in Harleydale Park, saw his saddened countenance, listened to his confession of love and heard his expressed determination of parting with her for ever, then she awakened to a sense of the state of her heart--then she saw that he was essential to her happiness--and that if he went abroad to return no more to her, her future life would be one of blank hopeless desolation. She found now that she loved him fondly and dearly; and, as she clung to him, she revealed, with words broken by sobs, the truth to him, and extorted from him a promise that he would change his resolve, now that he knew her heart was irrevocably his. Some hours passed in fond communings. Up to this moment, their relation to each other had, while essentially friendly, not been of a confiding character--it was so now. The time, however, came when they must part, and they did so with mutual expressions of tenderness, but with the understanding that for the present their attachment should be kept as a secret between them, and remain such until a favourable moment presented itself for an avowal. It was also arranged that no mention should be made by either of their present meeting, but that Hal should return to the inn at which he had put up, and that he should pay his visit to the Manor House as though he had arrived from London on a visit, having taken advantage of the general invitation he had received from her father, to come to his house when he would, with the certainty of always receiving a warm welcome. They separated. Flora, with a light step, and a strange buoyancy of spirit, hastened towards the house, and, after allowing her, as he believed, time to regain it, Hal left the sequestered glen, for evermore a dear spot in his memory, and struck off by a bye-path through the wood to the inn at which he had stopped on his arrival. During the morning’s shooting, Lester Vane and Colonel Mires accidentally became separated. The former was an ardent sportsman, and in the excitement of excellent sport, he followed up his game with more celerity and eagerness than the Colonel, whose long residence in India had grafted upon him habits of indolence which he felt little disposition to change.