"How could I come, you cruel woman!" said Gurdon--"how can you ask me? Hadn't you driven me by your hard-heartedness to make up my mind to go abroad? but only to find when I'd got to the ship that I couldn't go without saying one long `good-bye.' Oh, Jane!--Jane!--Jane!" The remaining words were lost to Jane's ear, but she could make out that he was sobbing and groaning softly, and it seemed to her, from the muffled sounds, that Gurdon had thrown himself down upon his face, and was trying to stifle the agony of his spirit, lest he should be heard, and so get her into trouble. Poor Jane! her heart yearned with genuine pity towards the erring man, and her hands involuntarily stretched themselves out as if to take him to her breast, which heaved with sobs of an affection as sincere as was ever felt by the most cultivated of her sex. "Oh, John!" she sobbed, "don't--don't!--please don't do that!" "How can I help it?" he groaned. "Why am I such a coward that I don't go and make a hole in the lake, and put myself out of my misery?" "Oh, pray--pray don't, John!" sobbed poor Jane, whose feelings were stirred to their deepest depth, and, believing in her old lovers earnest repentance, she was all the weak woman now. "I'm 'most heart-broken, dear, without more troubles. You don't know what has been happening lately." "No," groaned Gurdon, "I don't know. My troubles have been enough for me." "What with my lady nearly dying, and Sir Murray being locked up in the library, and the door being broken open to find him in a fit, the place is dreadful, without you going on as you do." "Don't, please, be hard on me, dear," groaned Gurdon; "and if they did break open the library door, they mended it again, I suppose, for Sir Murray's got plenty of money, ain't he?" "No, they didn't stop for no mending," sobbed Jane. "It's enough to do to mend poor people's sorrows here as is all driving us mad. Money's no use where you're miserable." "And are you miserable, dear?" whispered Gurdon. "Oh, how can you ask?" sobbed Jane. "Don't seem like it," said Gurdon, softly, "or you'd come down and say a few words to me before I go away, perhaps for ever; for when once the great seas are rolling between us, Jane, there's, perhaps, no chance of our seeing one another no more." "Oh, how can you ask me? You know I can't!" exclaimed Jane, angrily. "I thought as much," whined Gurdon, in a deep, husky voice, and as if speaking only to himself; "but I thought I'd put her to the proof--just give her one more trial." "You cruel--cruel--cruel fellow! how can you torture me so?" sobbed Jane, who had heard every word. "It's wicked of you, it is, when you know it's more than my place is worth to do it."