night-wind blew softly, the trees rustled, a whisper of sound was in the air, like the breath of invisible spectators standing by. “Oh, Val, is it you?” “It is me,” said Val “I came to look at your window before I went away.” “Where are you going?” she whispered in alarm. “Somewhere. I don’t know; I don’t care,” said the lad. “I cannot bear it. How can I face the world any more? I wish I could die and be done with it all; but you can’t die when you please. I wanted to say good-bye to you somehow. Vi, dear Vi, don’t forget me altogether; and yet it would be better that you should forget me,” he added, drearily. Oh, if she had been but near to him to console him! It was hard to hear him speak in this miserable tone, and have no power so much as to touch his hand. “How can you speak of forgetting?” said poor Vi; “as if I could ever forget! But, Val, I know you ought not to think of me any more.” “I wish I might not think of anything long,” he said. “God help us, Vi! everything seems over. Tell Sandy I am sorry I struck him. I was mad. He can call me a coward if he likes, and say I ran away.” “Oh, Val, Sandy is sorry too; he would ask your pardon too. Val, for pity’s sake try and think of us no more; but don’t go away--don’t go away!” cried Vi. Another faint sound, as of some one stirring in the house, here caught the ears of both. Val looked up in the moonlight, which shone for a moment upon his face, holding out his hands and waving a farewell to her. “Good-bye, good-bye,” his moving lips seemed to say; or was it a tremulous kiss they sent her through the sorrowful sighing night? In another moment he had disappeared as he came. Vi sat trembling and weeping silently at her window, watching him disappear into the darkness--trembling as if with guilt when she heard another window thrown open, and the sound of her mother’s voice. “I am sure I heard a step on the gravel,” Mrs Pringle said, looking out. But the white moonlight shone so full and broad over the cottage and its surroundings, that it was evident no nocturnal visitor was there. “I suppose it must have been my imagination,” she added, drawing in her head, and bolting and barring the window. It was long before Violet dared do the same, or dared to make even so much noise as rise from her chair. She sat there half the night through, crying silently, chilled and miserable. Only two nights before, how happy had she lain down!--happy as a child--far happier than any queen! and now it was all over. Even Val himself saw and acknowledged that it was so;--all over, as if it had been a tale read out of a book; and how soon the longest tale comes to an end!