"I think I could," she murmured in so low a tone that he could hardly hear the words. He seized her hands and pressed them closely in his own; he could do no more, for the Herons were very near. "Good-bye, my love, my own darling!" were the last words she heard. They rang in her ears as if they had been as loud as a trumpet-call; she could hardly believe that they had not re-echoed far and wide across the moor. She felt giddy and sick. The last sight of his face was lost in a strange, momentary darkness. When she saw clearly again he was walking away from her with long, hasty strides, and her cousins were close at hand. She watched him eagerly, but he did not turn round. She knew instinctively that he had resolved that she should never see his face again. "What is the matter, Betty?" cried one of the children. "You look so white! And where is Mr. Stretton going? Mr. Stretton! Wait for us!" "Don't call Mr. Stretton," said Elizabeth, collecting her forces, and speaking as nearly as possible in her ordinary tone. "He wants to get back to Strathleckie as quickly as possible. I am rather tired and am resting." "You are not usually tired with so short a walk," said Kitty, glancing sharply at her cousin's pallid cheeks. "Are you not well?" "Yes, I am quite well," Elizabeth answered. "But I am very, very tired." And then she rose and made her way back to the loch-side, where Mr. and Mrs. Heron were still reposing. But her steps lagged, and her face did not recover its usual colour as she went home, for, as she had said, she was tired--strangely and unnaturally tired--and it was with a feeling of relief that she locked herself into her own room at Strathleckie, and gave way to the gathering tears which she had hitherto striven to restrain. She would willingly have stayed away from the dinner-table, but she was afraid of exciting remark. Her pale face and heavy eyelids excited remark as much as her absence would have done; but she did not think of that. Mr. Stretton, who usually dined with them, sent an excuse to Mrs. Heron. He had a headache, and preferred to remain in his own room. "It must have been the sun," said Mrs. Heron. "Elizabeth has a headache, too. Have you a headache, Kitty?" "Not at all, thank you," said Kitty. There was something peculiar in her tone, thought Elizabeth. Or was it only that her conscience was guilty, and that she was becoming apt to suspect hidden meanings in words and tones that used to be harmless and innocent enough? The idea was a degrading one to her mind. She hated the notion of having anything to conceal--anything, at least, beyond what was lawful and right. Her inheritance, her engagement to Percival, had been to some extent kept secret; but not, as she now said passionately to herself, not because she was ashamed of them. Now, indeed, she was ashamed of her secret, and there was nothing on earth from which she shrank so much as the thought of its being discovered.