"Edith," he said--"my own dear Edith, let us be calm! Thank you, my beloved, for one moment of happiness, the first I have known for years; and now let us talk, as quietly as may be, of anything that may have arisen which should justly cause Henry Leyton's return to make Edith Croyland wish herself dead. Your uncle will not be long ere he arrives; I left him on the road; and it is by his full consent that I am here." "Oh no, Harry--no!" said Edith, turning at first to his comment on her words, "it is not your return that makes me wish myself dead; but it is, that circumstances--dark and terrible circumstances--which were only made known to me an hour before your arrival, have turned all the joy, the pure, the almost unmixed joy, that I should have felt at seeing you again, into a well of bitterness. It is that I cannot, that I dare not explain to you those circumstances--that you will think me wrong, unkind--fickle, perhaps,--perhaps even mad, in whatsoever way I may act." "But surely you can say something, dear Edith," said her lover; "you can give some hint of the cause of all I see. You tell me in one breath that you love me still, yet wish you were dead; and show evidently that my coming has been painful to you." "No, no, Harry," she answered, mournfully, "do not say so. Painful to me?--oh, no! It would be the purest joy that ever I yet knew, were it not that--But why did you not come earlier, Harry? Why, when your horse stood upon that hill, did you not turn his head hither? Would that you had, would that you had! My fate would have been already decided. Now it is all clouds and darkness. I knew you instantly. I could see no feature; I could but trace a figure on horseback, wrapped in a large cloak; but the instinct of love told me who it was. Oh! why did you not come then?" "Because it would have been dishonest, Edith," answered Leyton, gravely. "Your uncle had been my father's friend, my uncle's friend. In a kindly manner he invited me here some time ago, as a perfect stranger, under the name of Captain Osborn. You were not here then; and I thought I could not in honour come under his roof, when I found you were here, without telling him who I really was. He appointed this day to meet me at Woodchurch at two; and I dared not venture, after all that has passed between your family and mine, to seek you in his dwelling, ere I had seen and explained myself to him. I knew you were here: I gazed up at these windows with a yearning of the heart that nearly overcame my resolution----"