But while she propounded these uneasy questions to herself, our hero was striding across the park and lanes and fields toward the Abbey ruins, every other thought swallowed up in the intense longing to see Leonora again. His heart beat heavily as he came in sight of her, at last, sitting among the green graves, as he had seen her before, but not sketching busily now, for her drawing materials lay beside her on the grass, and her head was bowed on her arm, her face hidden from sight on her black sleeve. "Poor child!" he thought, compassionately, "she has a sorrow to grieve over as well as I;" and he stepped softly, almost fearing to intrude upon the sacredness of her grief, yet loath to turn back again, for something drew him irresistibly to her side. The soft echo of his footstep in the grass startled her. She looked up quickly with a low cry. He saw tears upon her face, and her rosy lips were quivering like a child's. "Leonora!" he cried, and knelt down impulsively by her side. She was so taken by surprise for a moment that she forgot to draw away the hands he caught daringly in his. She looked up at him, and said, with a catch in her breath: "I thought you were in London." "So I was until to-day; but I came down to bid you good-bye," he answered, feasting his hungry sight unrestrainedly on the pale beauty of her lifted face. "Then you knew that I was going away?" she asked. "Yes; I saw De Vere in town. He told me," he answered; and a pretty blush crept into her cheeks, and her lashes fell. "And so," he went on, half smiling, "you refused my friend, in spite of all my advice to the contrary?" She pulled her hands suddenly away. "Yes, I refused him. Was it worth my while," with a stinging scorn her voice, "to sell my body and soul for paltry gold?" "No; you were right not to give the hand while your heart was another's," he said, bending down to look into her face that suddenly grew burning crimson as she cried out, sharply: "Why do you say that? How dare you? Has Lieutenant De Vere told you--" "Yes, he has told me that you would not marry him because you loved another. He is a thrice better man whoever he may be, Leonora. How much I envy him I need not say," he said, earnestly, carried away by the passion that filled him. She looked at him with her gray-blue eyes full of wonder. "You! Lady Adela's intended husband!" she said, bitterly. "I am not her intended husband," he answered. "Do you think I am less noble than you, Leonora? that I could wrong any one by giving my hand without my heart? No, I do not love Lady Adela, and I can never be her husband. Do you know what I was doing up in London, child?" "How should I know?" she answered. "Well, I was trying to exchange into a regiment that is _en route_ for India. I am going to throw over the twenty thousand a year and run away from England and my pain." "You are?" she said, drawing a long breath and gazing at him with dilated, wondering eyes. "But why, Lord Lancaster?"