"I shall go back when I have taken Maude to the hall-door," said George. "Not before." Anything that might have been said further by Cris, was interrupted by the appearance of Miss Trevlyn. She was standing on the steps. "Where have you been, Maude?" "To Trevlyn Farm," was Maude's truthful answer. "You would not let me go during the day, so I have been now. It seemed to me that I must see him before he was put underground." "See _him_!" cried Miss Trevlyn. "Yes. It was all I went for. I did not see my aunt. George, thank you for bringing me home," she continued, stepping in. "Good-night. I would have given all I possess for it never to have happened." She burst into a flood of tears as she spoke--the result, no doubt, of her previous fright and excitement, as well as her sorrow for Mr. Ryle's unhappy fate. George wrung her hand, and lifted his hat to Miss Trevlyn as he turned away. But ere he had well plunged into the dark avenue, there came swift and stealthy steps behind him. A soft hand was laid upon him, and a soft voice spoke, broken by tears: "Oh, George, I am so sorry! I have felt all day as if it would almost be my death. I think I could have given my own life to save his." "I know, I know! I know how _you_ will feel it," replied George, utterly unmanned by the true and unexpected sympathy. It was Mrs. Chattaway. CHAPTER VI THE ROMANCE OF TREVLYN HOLD It is impossible to go on without a word of retrospect. The Ryles, gentlemen by a long line of ancestry, had once been rich men, but they were open-handed and heedless, and in the time of George's grandfather, the farm (not called the farm then) passed into the possession of the Trevlyns of the Hold, who had a mortgage on it. They named it Trevlyn Farm, and Mr. Ryle and his son remained on as tenants where they had once been owners. After old Mr. Ryle's death, his son married the daughter of the curate of Barbrook, the Reverend George Berkeley, familiarly known as Parson Berkeley. In point of fact, the parish knew no other pastor, for its Rector was an absentee. Mary Berkeley was an only child. She had been petted, and physicked, and nursed, after the manner of only children, and grew up sickly as a matter of course. A delicate, beautiful girl in appearance, but not strong. People (who are always fond, you know, of settling everybody else's business for them) deemed that she made a poor match in marrying Thomas Ryle. It was whispered, however, that he himself might have made a greater match, had he chosen--no other than Squire Trevlyn's eldest daughter. There was not so handsome, so attractive a man in all the country round as Thomas Ryle.