The dinner was rather a somber feast. North felt the restraint of the general's presence; he sensed his disfavor; and with added bitterness he realized that this was his last night in Mount Hope, that the morrow would find him speeding on his way West. He had given up everything for nothing, and now that a purpose, a hope, a great love had come to him, he must go from this place, the town of his birth, where he had become a bankrupt in both purse and reputation. It was a relief when they returned to the drawing-room. There the general excused himself, and North and Elizabeth were left alone. She seated herself before the open fire of blazing hickory logs, whose light, and that of the shaded lamps, filled the long room with a soft radiance. She had never seemed so desirable to North as now when he was about to leave her. He stood silent, leaning against the corner of the chimneypiece, looking down on all her springlike radiance. Usually he was neither preoccupied nor silent, but to-night he was both. The thought that he was seeing her for the last time--Ah, this was the price of all his folly! At length he spoke. "I came to-night to say good-by, Elizabeth!" She glanced up, startled. "To say good-by?" she repeated. He nodded gloomily. "Do you mean that you are going to leave Mount Hope?" she asked slowly. "Yes, to-night maybe." Her glance no longer met his, but he was conscious that she had lost something of her serenity. "Are you sorry, Elizabeth?" he ventured. To pass mutely out of her life had suddenly seemed an impossibility, and his tenderness and yearning trembled in his voice. She answered obliquely, by asking: "Must you go?" "I want to get away from Mount Hope. I want to leave it all,--all but you, dear!" he said. "You haven't answered me, Elizabeth; will you care?" "I am sorry," she said slowly, and the light in her gray-blue eyes darkened. She heard the sigh that wasted itself on his lips. "I am glad you can say that,--I wish you would look up!" he said wistfully. "Are you going to-night?" she questioned. "Yes, but I am coming back. I shan't find that you have forgotten me when I come, shall I, Elizabeth?" She looked up quickly into his troubled face, and it was not the warm firelight that brought the rich color in a sudden flame to her cheeks. "I shall not forget you." There was a determined gentleness in her speech and manner that gave him courage. "I haven't any right to talk to you in this way; I know I haven't, but--Oh, I want you, Elizabeth!" And all at once he was on his knees beside her, his arms about her. "Don't forget me, dear! I love you, I Love you--I want you--Oh, I want you for my wife!" The girl looked into the passionate face upturned to hers, and then her head drooped. And so they remained long; his dark head resting in her arms; her fair face against it. "Why do you go, John?" she asked at length, out of the rich content of their silence.