He was silent. She had indeed spoken the truth; yet how could he bring himself to acknowledge to her, what he shrank from admitting to his own heart, the weakness of that easy nature of his, which had brought him to this terrible pass? His one thought had been to "keep neighbourly," as he called it, with difficult Master Rumbold. To give the maltster offence, was never to see Ruth again, and that was an unendurable thought. And so, hardly conscious whither he was drifting, he suddenly found himself on the edge of this abyss of crime, from which the soft, sweet, but resolute voice at his side now warned him back ere it was too late. "Choose," she said. [Sidenote: Lawrence decides.] "I cannot," he answered, turning and gazing sadly down on the pale agonized face which had never before seemed so dear to him. "There is no choice for me, Ruth, but to go." "And Heaven reward you!" she said, a ray of gladness breaking into her tearful eyes as she laid her hand on his arm. "Farewell then, Ruth!" he said with an almost imperceptible shrug; "and if we should never meet again--." He paused. "Farewell then, Ruth." [Sidenote: Gone.] And turning away his face, as if he dared not again meet the sight of hers, he took her little hand in his and wrung it fast. Then springing to the window ledge, he flung the pane wide open, and planting one foot firmly on the fretted stonework outside, was lost in the darkness. CHAPTER XIX. "STARS AND GARTERS." The inmates of the King's Arms had been in bed and asleep full four hours, and profound silence reigned throughout its precincts, when, a few moments after the gatehouse clock had chimed one, a loud rattling on the panes of Mistress Sheppard's bedchamber window roused her from uneasy dreams. "Cuther! what a night!" ejaculated she, sitting up and listening to the sound as it fell again with increased violence. "There's hail for you! Big as pebble stones, be sure." A third shower made it clear beyond all question that pebble-stones they were; and rising in haste, she opened a pane of the lattice and looked out. "Is that you, Mistress Sheppard?" said a muffled voice immediately beneath, as the billowy outlines of her nightcap broke dazzling white amid the surrounding darkness upon the vision of the speaker. "And is that you, Master Lee?" sharply replied the mistress of the hostelry, as her nocturnal visitor, turning the light of the dark lantern he carried full upon the casement, revealed at the same time his own form and features. "What do you want?" she went on in dudgeon, "coming here at this time o' night, bringin' honest folks' hearts into their mouths, and disturbin' their rest?" "Yes, yes," hastily assented Lee; "'tis very late, I grant you--" "Early, I suppose you mean," fumed Mistress Sheppard, clutching the pane, to snap it to again. "And let me tell you--" "Oh, yes! whatever you please, if--" "Please! There's little o' pleasin' in bein' waked up at this hour."