It was a time fraught with intoxicating delight, but of terrible temptation to Jabez. The frequent fits of langour which bowed Augusta down like a drooping lily, made her only more dangerously dear to him, and it needed all his strength to remember that she was his master’s daughter, and confided to his care. If he now thought of Laurence Aspinall and his fascination, it was only as a butterfly beau, for whom no sensible maiden could entertain a permanent liking. Not even when, turning back one forenoon for something in the closet which he had forgotten, he found her in tears on the low ledge of the open window at the foot of the staircase. “Good heaven, Miss Ashton, what is the matter? Are you ill? Is anything troubling you?” “Nothing,” sobbed she, the clear drops falling faster. “Nothing! oh, Miss Ashton, this cannot be for nothing,” and he sat down on the window-ledge beside her, not daring so much as to touch her hand, his own were in such a quiver. “Miss Ashton—Augusta—you told me your troubles when you were a school-girl, am I less worthy your confidence now? Can I do anything to serve you? I would lay my life down to save you from pain;” and the earnest tenderness of his voice spoke volumes. She had subdued her emotion. Gathering herself up with a reflex of her mother’s stateliness, she said haughtily, “It is nothing, sir, I am better,” and swept past him up the staircase, leaving him to set his teeth and turn away with clenched hands, alike exasperated at his own loss of self-command and grieved for her grief. On the narrow landing which ran parallel with the staircase like a balcony, Augusta found her cousin Ellen, with one hand on her side, leaning against the chamber door-post, as if for support, with closed eyes and pale lips. She had been “overcome by the heat”—so she said. CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SIXTH. THE LOVERs’ WALK. Jabez held a responsible post, and had no more leisure than other business men for emotional indulgence. He hurried out of the cottage, and down the avenue, shutting up his bitter feelings within the doors of his heart as he went. But the process closed his eyes and ears to external sounds, and the old postman, with his long tin horn, which had been echoing through the straggling village a full quarter of an hour, passed him in the avenue and said, “Good-day,” without so much as arresting his attention. At the mill he found letters waiting—one, which had been post-paid as a double letter, conspicuous amongst the wafered business communications, not only because of its thick, gilt-edged paper, and crimson disk of crested wax, but from its curious folding, as if to baffle prying eyes. It was signed “Ben Travis,” and was so long, it went into a pantaloon pocket, to be read when his multifarious duties allowed him more leisure.