"He has taken himself off from Hall," answered Luke, "on your account. His father refuses to countenance his attachment to you." "Then where is he? With you?" "Yes, with me. I have come to know your mind. He cannot always remain with me and at variance with his father." "On my account this has happened?" she said. "Yes, on your account. How is this to end?" She put her hands to her brow, and pressed her temples. "I am pulled this way and that," she answered, "and I feel as if I should go mad. But I have made my resolve, I will give him up. I have been an undutiful daughter always, and now I will obey my mother's last wishes. In that one thing that will cost me most, I will submit, and so atone for the wrong I did all the years before." "Then you determine to give up Anthony, wholly?" The colour came and went in her cheek, then deserted it entirely. She clasped her hands over her knee--she had reseated herself--and she said in a low voice, "Wholly." "You give me authority to tell him this?" "Yes. It can never be that we can belong to each other after what my mother said. You heard. She hoped if he ever passed through this door, that he might be struck dead on the hearth." "They were awful words," said Luke, "but----" "They were her last words." Luke returned to his home and found Anthony there, pacing his little parlour, to work off his impatience. When he heard what Luke had to say, he burst into angry reproach. "You have spoken like a parson! It was wrong for you to meddle, I knew no good would come of it! I will not hear of this! I will go to Urith myself!" "You must not." "I will! Nothing shall stay me." He caught up his hat and swung out of the room. CHAPTER XVIII. A LOVER AND HIS LASS. Anthony strode along the way to Willsworthy. That way took him past Cudliptown. The landlord was at the door of his inn. "What! pass my house without a step inside?" asked he. "There's Master Sol Gibbs there and Moorman Ever." "I cannot stay," answered Anthony. "Oh!" laughed the taverner, "I see;" and he began to whistle a country song--"An evening so clear." Instantly the strains of a viol-de-gamba were heard from within taking up the strain, and Uncle Solomon's voice singing lustily: An evening so clear I would that I were, To kiss thy soft cheek With the faintest of air. The star that is twinkling So brightly above, I would that I were To enlighten my love! Anthony walked on. His brow knitted, and he set his teeth. The innkeeper had guessed that he was going to Willsworthy, and suspected the reason. That idiot Solomon Gibbs had been talking. As he strode along, the plaintive and sweet melody followed him; all that was harsh in the voice mellowed by the distance; and Anthony sang to himself low, as he continued his course: