312 [January 28, 1360.]  ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by

She sighed heavily, and leaned towards me a
little, so as to rest her shoulder against mine.
I felt her trembling, and tried to spare her by
speaking myself. She stopped me by a warning
pressure of her hand, and then addressed Sir
Percival once more; but, this time, without
looking at him.

"I have heard," she said, " and I believe it,
that the fondest and truest of all affections is
the affection which a woman ought to bear to
her husband. When our engagement began,
that affection was mine to give, if I could, and
yours to win, if you could. Will you pardon
me, and spare me, Sir Percival, if I acknowledge
that it is not so any longer?"

A few tears gathered in her eyes, and dropped
over her cheeks slowly, as she paused and
waited for his answer. He did not utter a
word. At the beginning of her reply, he had
moved the hand on which his head rested, so
that it hid his face. I saw nothing but the
upper part of his figure at the table. Not a
muscle of him moved. The fingers of the hand
which supported his head were dented deep in
his hair; but there was no significant trembling
in them. There was nothing, absolutely no-
thing, to tell the secret of his thoughts at that
moment the moment which was the crisis of
his life and the crisis of hers.

I was determined to make him declare him-
self, for Laura's sake.

"Sir Percival!" I interposed, sharply; "have
you nothing to say, when my sister has said so
much? More, in my opinion," I added, my
unlucky temper getting the better of me, " than
any man alive, in your position, has a right to
hear from her."

That last rash sentence opened a way for him
by which to escape me if he chose; and he in-
stantly took advantage of it.

"Pardon me, Miss Halcombe," he said, still
keeping his hand over his face " pardon me, if
I remind you that I have claimed no such
right."

The few plain words which would have
brought him back to the point from which he
had wandered, were just on my lips, when
Laura checked me by speaking again.

"I hope I have not made my painful acknow-
ledgment in vain," she continued. " I hope it
has secured me your entire confidence in what I
have still to say?"

"Pray be assured of it." He made that
brief reply, warmly; dropping his hand on the
table, while he spoke, and turning towards us
again. Whatever outward change had passed
over him, was gone now. His face was eager
and expectant it expressed nothing but the
most intense anxiety to hear her next words.

"I wish you to understand that I have not
spoken from any selfish motive," she said. " If
you leave me, Sir Percival, after what you have
just heard, you do not leave me to marry another
man you only allow me to remain a single
woman for the rest of my life. My fault
towards you has begun and ended in my own
thoughts. It can never go any farther. No

word has passed—-" She hesitated, in doubt

about the expression she should use next; hesi-
tated, in a momentary confusion which it was
very sad and very painful to see. " No word
has passed," she patiently and resolutely re-
sumed, "between myself and the person to
whom I am now referring for the first and last
time in your presence, of my feelings towards
him, or of his feelings towards me—no word
ever can pass—neither he nor I are likely, in
this world, to meet again. I earnestly beg you
to spare me from saying any more, and to be-
lieve me, on my word, in what I have just told
you. It is the truth, Sir Percival—the truth
which I think my promised husband has a claim
to hear, at any sacrifice of my own feelings. I
trust to his generosity to pardon me, and to his
honour to keep my secret."

"Both those trusts are sacred to me," he
said, " and both shall be sacredly kept."

After answering in those terms, he paused,
and looked at her, as if he was waiting to hear
more.

"I have said all I wished to say," she added,
quietly—"I have said more than enough to
justify you in withdrawing from your engage-
ment."

"You have said more than enough," he an-
swered, " to make it the dearest object of my
life to keep the engagement." With those words
he rose from his chair, and advanced a few steps
towards the place where she was sitting.

She started violently, and a faint cry of sur-
prise escaped her. Every word she had spoken
had innocently betrayed her purity and truth to
a man who thoroughly understood the priceless
value of a pure and true woman. Her own
noble conduct had been the hidden enemy,
throughout, of all the hopes she had trusted to
it. I had dreaded this from the first. I would
have prevented it, if she had allowed me the
smallest chance of doing so. I even waited and
watched, now, when the harm was done, for a
word from Sir Percival that would give me the
opportunity of putting him in the wrong.

"You have left it to me, Miss Fairlie, to
resign you," he continued. " I am not heart-
less enough to resign a woman who has just
shown herself to be the noblest of her sex."

He spoke with such warmth and feeling, with
such passionate enthusiasm and yet with such
perfect delicacy, that she raised her head,
flushed up a little, and looked at him with
sudden animation and spirit.

"No!" she said, firmly. " The most wretched
of her sex, if she must give herself in marriage
when she cannot give her love."

"May she not give it in the future," he
asked, "if the one object of her husband's life
is to deserve it?"

"Never!" she answered. " If you still
persist in maintaining our engagement, I may
be your true and faithful wife, Sir Percival—
your loving wife, if I know my own heart,
never!"

She looked so irresistibly beautiful as she
said those brave words that no man alive could