He glanced back over his shoulder, and looked sharply down the path I had come by, and being now very near me, with another gloomy shake of the head, he said, with a tone and look of indescribable reproach and sorrow: "So Ethel has her secrets, and tells me but half her mind." "What can you mean, Richard?" "Ah! Ethel, I would not have treated you so," he continued. "You distract me, Richard; what have I done?" "I have heard it all by accident, I may say, from old Mr. Blount, who has been simpleton enough to tell me. You have asked my uncle to take you to London, and you are going." "Asked him! I have all but implored of him to leave me here. I never heard a word of it till last night, as we returned together in the boat. Oh! Richard, how could you think such things? That is the very thing I have been so longing to talk to you about." "Ethel, darling, are you opening your heart entirely to me now; is there no reserve? No; I am sure there is not; you need not answer." "It is distracting news; is there nothing I can do to prevent it?" I said. He looked miserable enough, as walking slowly along the path, and sometimes standing still, we talked it over. "Yes," he said; "the danger is that you may lead him by resistance to look for some secret motive. If he should suspect our engagement, few worse misfortunes could befall us. Good heavens! shall I ever have a quiet home? Ethel, I know what will happen--you will go to London; I shall be forgotten. It will end in the ruin of all my hopes." So he raved on. I wept, and upbraided, and vowed my old vows over again. At length after this tempestuous scene had gone on for some time, we two walking side by side up and down the path, and sometimes stopping short, I crying, if you will, like a fool, he took my hand and looked in my face very sadly, and he said after a little: "Only I know that he would show more anger, I should have thought that my uncle knew of our engagement, and was acting expressly to frustrate it. He has found work for me at his property near Hull, and from that I am to go to Warwickshire, so that I suppose I can't be here again before the middle of October, and long before then you will be at Brighton, where, Mr. Blount says, he means to take you first, and from that to London." "But you are not to leave this immediately?" I said. He smiled bitterly, and answered: "He takes good care I shall. I am to leave this to-morrow morning." I could not speak for a moment. "Oh, Richard, Richard, how am I to live through this separation?" I cried wildly. "You must contrive some way to see me. I shall die unless you do."