“I have given you this narrative, Harry, as nearly as I can remember, every step of it; but I do not ask you to understand it better than I do, which means, not at all! Nor will I worry you with the thousand-and-one attempts I have made to explain to myself what I still confess to be inexplicable. I mean to leave this at once. Would that I had never come here! Write to me soon; but no bantering, Harry. Not even my friendship for _you_--oldest and best of all my friends--could stand any levity on this theme. This girl knows me thoroughly, since she comprehends that there is no so certain way to engage my affections as to defy them! “Write to me, I entreat. Address me at my father's, where I shall be, probably, within a week. Were I to read over what I have just written, the chances are I should burn the letter; and so, _sans adieu_, “Yours ever, “Jack Massingbred.” CHAPTER XXIV. THREE COACHES AND THEIR COMPANY Three large and stately travelling-carriages, heavily laden, and surrounded with all the appliances for comfort possible, rolled from under the arched gateway of Cro' Martin. One eager and anxious face turned hastily to catch a last look at the place he was leaving, and then as hastily concealing his emotion with his handkerchief, Mr. Martin sat back in the carriage in silence. “Twenty minutes after eight!” exclaimed Lady Dorothea, looking at her watch. “It is always the case; one never can get away in time.” Rousted by the speech, Martin started, and turned again to the window. “How handsome those larches are!” cried he; “it seems but yesterday that I planted them, and they are magnificent trees now.” Her Ladyship made no reply, and he went on, half as though speaking to himself: “The place is in great beauty just now. I don't think I ever saw it looking so well. Shall I ever see it again?” muttered he, in a still lower tone. “I really cannot think it ought to break your heart, Mr. Martin, if I were to say 'No' to that question,” said she, testily. “No--no!” exclaimed he, repeating the word after her; “not come back here!” “There is nothing to prevent us if we should feel disposed to do so,” replied she, calmly. “I only observed that one could face the alternative with a good courage. The twenty years we have passed in this spot are represented to _your_ mind by more leafy trees and better timber. To _me_ they are written in the dreary memory of a joyless, weary existence. I detest the place,” cried she, passionately, “and for nothing more, that even on leaving it my spirits are too jaded and broken to feel the happiness that they ought.” Martin sighed heavily, but did not utter a word. “So it is,” resumed she; “one ever takes these resolutions too late. What we are doing now should have been done sixteen or eighteen years ago.” “Or not at all,” muttered Martin, but in a voice not meant to be overheard.