"It is settled. I have passed my word, and I will not withdraw it." "Bess! And after the lesson you have had from Anthony!" "How a lesson, Julian?" "Why, dear child, a lesson that it does not answer to marry without love." "Surely, Julian, there was love there, on both sides." "Oh! love! A passing caprice. Do you not know that Anthony always loved me? Why has he gone off to join the Duke of Monmouth? Do you suppose it is because he cares so greatly for the Protestant cause? Nay, wench, it is that he may escape from me--and from the sight of Urith. I am dangerous, Urith is odious to him. Better be where balls are flying than where my eyes flash with temptation and Urith's dart with jealousy." "Julian! how canst thou speak thus?" Bessie stepped back from her visitor, without offering to take her extended hands. "Nay! do not be so offended. What I speak is the truth, and it all comes of marrying where there is no true affection. I am holding up thy brother as a warning to thee. Dost think that Fox cares a rush for thee? Not half a rush--all he looks to is Hall; he takes thee because he cannot have Hall without thee; and to have Hall is double pleasure to him, for he will have the place as his own, spiced with the satisfaction of having robbed his friend of it." "I cannot help myself. I have passed my word, and stand to it." "Look how things are now at Willsworthy. There is Urith dying, maybe; and Anthony far away. I hope she may die. It is best so, for she will have no happiness any more with Anthony. He is weary of her, he has found out that he cannot find his rest in her, his heart is with me. It has come back to me. It flew away a little while, and now it has returned. Anthony is mine. He does not belong any more to Urith." "Shame on you!" said Bessie. "But I am glad you have spoken on this matter. You have acted sinfully, you have striven to turn Anthony from his duty." "I have done so. Urith and I have wrestled a hitch together, and I have given her the turn, a fair back--three points. That is what she knows, and she is eating her heart out at the thought." "Do you know what has happened? Urith has become a mother of a dead child." "Is it so?" Julian was startled and changed colour. She had not heard this, she only knew that Urith was ill.