"Do you think it would be so easy for me, then, to take money from your hands after what has passed between us?"

"Money is a small thing," said she.

"Money! yes; but there are other things in the world beside money. And it is better that I should go away from you now. It is not for my peace to see you every day, and know that you are to marry Percival Heron.

Cannot you guess what pain it is to me?"

"But the children: you have no love for them, then. I thought that you did love our little Jack--and they are so fond of you."

"Don't try to keep me," he said, hoarsely. "It is hard enough to say good-bye without having to refuse you anything. The one thing now for which I could almost thank God is that you never loved me, Elizabeth."

She shivered, and drew a long, sobbing breath. Her face looked pale and cold: her voice did not sound like itself as she murmured--

"Why?"

"Because--no, I can't tell you why. Think for yourself of a reason. It is not that I love you less; and yet--yet--not for the world would I marry you now that I know what I know."

"You would not marry me because I am rich: that is it, is it not?" she asked him. "I knew that some men were proud; but I did not think that you would be so proud."

"What does it signify? There is no chance of your marrying me; you are going to marry another man--whom you do not love; we may scarcely ever see each other again after to-day. It is better so."

"If I were free," she said, slowly, "and if--if--I loved you, you would be doing wrong to leave me because--only because--I was a little richer than you. I do not think that that is your only motive. It is since you heard that I was one of the Luttrell-Murrays that you have spoken in this way."

"What if it were? The fact remains," he said, gloomily. "You do not care for me; and I--I would give my very soul for you, Elizabeth. I had better go. Think of me kindly when I am away--that is all. I see Miss Heron and the boys on the brow of the hill signalling to us. Will you excuse me if I say good-bye to you now, and walk back towards Strathleckie?"

"Must it be now?" she said, scarcely knowing what the words implied. She turned her face towards him with a look that he never forgot--a look of inexpressible regret, of yearning sweetness, of something only too like the love that he thought he had failed to win. It caused him to turn back and to lean over her with a half-whispered question--

"Would it have been possible, Elizabeth, if we had met earlier, do you think that you ever could have loved me?"

"Do you think you ought to ask me?"

"Ah, give me one word of comfort before I go. Remember that I go for ever. It will do no one any harm. Could you have loved me, Elizabeth?"

"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.

She went to bed early, but she could not sleep. The words that Brian had said to her, the answers that she had made to him, were rehearsed one after the other, turned over in her mind, commented on, and repeated again and again all through the night. She hardly knew the meaning of her own excitement of feeling, nor of the intense desire that possessed her to see him again and listen once more to his voice. She only knew that her brain was in a turmoil and that her heart seemed to be on fire.

Sleep! She could not think of sleep. His face was before her, his voice was sounding in her ears, until the cock crew and the morning sunlight flooded all the room. And then for a little while, indeed, she slept, and dreamt of him.

She awoke late and unrefreshed. She dressed leisurely, wondering somewhat at the vehemence of last night's emotion, but not mistress enough of herself to understand its danger. In that last moment of her interview with Brian she had given way far more than he knew. If he had understood and taken advantage of that moment of weakness, she would not have been able to refuse him anything. At a word she would have given up all for him--friends, home, riches, even her promise to Percival--and gone forth into the world with the man she loved, happier in her poverty than she had ever been in wealth. "Ask me no more, for at a touch I yield," was the silent cry of her inmost soul. But Brian had not understood. He did not dream that with Elizabeth, as with most women, the very weakest time is that which immediately follows the moment of greatest apparent strength. She had refused to listen to him at all--and after that refusal she was not strong, but weak in heart and will as a wearied child.

Realising this, Elizabeth felt a sensation of relief and safety. She had escaped a great gulf--and yet--and yet--she had not reached that point of reasonableness and moderation at which she could be exactly glad that she had escaped.

She made her way downstairs, and reached the dining-room to find that everyone but herself had breakfasted and gone out. She was too feverish to do more than swallow a cup of coffee and a little toast, and she had scarcely concluded her scanty meal before Mr. Heron entered the room with a disconcerted expression upon his face.

"Do you know the reason of this freak of Stretton's, Elizabeth?" he asked almost immediately.

"What do you mean, Uncle Alfred?"

"I mean--has he taken a dislike to Strathleckie, or has anybody offended him? I can't understand it. Just when we were settling down so nicely, and found him such an excellent tutor for the boys! To run away after this fashion! It is too bad!"

"Does Mr. Stretton think of leaving Strathleckie?" said Elizabeth, with her eyes bent steadfastly upon the table-cloth.

"Think of leaving! My dear Lizzie, he has left! Gone: went this morning before any of us were down. Spoke to me last night about it; I tried to dissuade him, but his mind was quite made up."

"What reason did he give?"

"Well, he would not tell me the exact reason. I tried to find out, but he was as close as--as--wax," said Mr. Heron, trying to find a suitable simile. "He said he was much obliged to us all for our kindness to him; had no fault to find with anything or anybody; liked the place; but, all the same, he wanted to go, and go he must. I offered him double the salary--at least, I hinted as much: I knew you would not object, Lizzie dear, but it was no use. Partly family affairs; partly private reasons: that was all I could get out of him."

Mr. Heron's long speech left Elizabeth the time to consider what to say.

"It does not matter very much," she answered at length, indifferently: "we can find someone who will teach the boys quite as well, I have no doubt."

"Do you think so?" asked Mr. Heron. "Well, perhaps so. But, you see, it is not always easy to get a tutor at this time of the year, Elizabeth; and, besides, we shall not find one, perhaps, so ready to read Italian with you, as Mr. Stretton used to do----"

Oh, those Italian readings! How well she remembered them! How the interest which Mr. Stretton had from the first inspired in her had grown and strengthened in the hours that they spent together, with heads bent over the same page, and hearts throbbing in unison over the lines that spoke of Dante's Beatrice, or Petrarca's Laura! She shuddered at the remembrance, now fraught to her with keenest pain.

"I shall not want to read Italian again," she said, rising from the table. "We had better advertise for a tutor, Uncle Alfred, unless you think the boys might run wild for a little while, or unless Percival can find us one."

"Shall you be writing to Percival to-day, my dear?"

"I don't know."

"Because you might mention that Mr. Stretton has left us. I am afraid that Percival will be glad," said Mr. Heron, with a little laugh; "he had an unaccountable dislike to poor Stretton."

"Yes, Percival will be glad," said Elizabeth, turning mechanically to leave the room. At the door she paused. "Mr. Stretton left an address, I suppose?"

"No, he did not. He said he would write to me when his plans were settled. And I'm sorry to say he would not take a cheque. I pressed it upon him, and finally left it on the table for him--where I found it again this morning. He said that he had no right to it, leaving as suddenly as he did--some crochet of that kind. I should think that Stretton could be very Quixotic if he chose."

"When he writes," said Elizabeth, "you will send him the cheque, will you not, Uncle Alfred? I do not think that he is very well off; and it seems a pity that he should be in want of money for the sake of--of--a scruple."

She did not wait for a reply, but closed the door behind her, and stood for a few moments in the hall, silently wondering what to do and where to go. Finally she put on her garden hat and went out into the grounds.

She felt that she must be alone.