"You, as well as all the world," he repeated,
in a dreamy tone. "Well, perhaps so. I will
think so, and to hope it will be——"

He stopped; the gentleman's nature in him
still existing, still ready at call, notwithstanding
his degradation, withheld him from presuming
on the position in which he found himself, and
in which the girl's innocent impulsiveness had
placed her. To him, with his knowledge of
who she was, and who he was, with the curious
relation of severance which existed between
them, the sort of intimacy which had sprung
up, had not so much strangeness as it
externally exhibited, and he had to remind
himself that she did not share that knowledge,
and therefore stood on a different level to his,
in the matter. He determined to get off the
dangerous ground, and there was a convincing
proof in that determination that the tide had
turned for the young man, that he had indeed
resolved upon the better way. His revenge
upon his step-father lay ready to his hand; the
unconscious girl made it plain to him that he
had excited a strange and strong interest in her.
It was not a bad initiation of the prodigal's
project of reform that he renounced that
revenge, and turned away from the temptation to
improve his chance advantage into the
establishment of an avowed mutual interest. This
step he took by saying, gaily, "Then I have
your permission to send you my first work, Miss
Carruthers, and you promise it a place in that
grand old library I had a glimpse of yesterday?"

A little shade of something like disappointment
crossed Clare's sunny face. The sudden
transition in his tone jarred with her feelings of
curiosity, romance, and flattered vanity. For
Clare had her meed of that quality, like other
women and men, and had never had it so
pleasantly gratified as on the present occasion. But
she had too much good breeding to be pertinacious
on any subject, and too much delicacy of
perception to fail in taking the hint which the
alteration in George's manner conveyed. So
there was no further allusion to the sprig of
myrtle or to the future probability of a disclosure;
but the two walked on together, and
talked of books, pictures, and the toils and
triumphs of a literary life (George, to do him
justice, not affecting a larger share in them
than was really his), until they neared Miss
Carruthers's destination. The footpath which they
had followed had led them by a gentle rise in
the ground to the brow of a little hill, similar
to that from which George had seen his mother's
carriage approach Amherst on the preceding
day, but from the opposite end of the town.
Immediately under the brow of this hill, and
approached by the path, which inclined towards
its trim green gate, stood a neat small cottage,
in a square bit of garden, turning its red-brick
vine-covered side to the road beneath. "When
George saw this little dwelling, he knew his
brief spell of enjoyment was over.

"That is the cottage," Clare, and he had
the consolation of observing that there was no
particular elation in her voice or in her face.
"Sir Thomas built it for its present tenant."

"Shall you be going back to the Sycamores
alone, Miss Carruthers?" asked George, in the
most utterly irrelevant manner. He had a
wild notion of asking leave to wait for her, and
escort her home. Again Clare blushed as she
replied hurriedly:

"No, I shall not. My aunt is to pick me up
here in the carriage, on her way to the town,
and I return to Poynings this evening. I have
been away a fortnight."

George longed to question her concerning
life at Poynings, longed to mention his mother's
name, or to say something to the girl that would
lead her to mention it; but the risk was too
great, and he refrained,

"Indeed! and when do you return to the
Sycamores?" was all he said.

"It is quite uncertain," she replied. "I
fancy my uncle means to go to London for
part of the season, but we don't quite know yet;
he never says much about his plans." She
stopped abruptly, as if conscious that she was
not conveying a very pleasing impression of
her uncle. George understood her, and correctly,
to refer to Mr. Carruthers.

They had descended the incline by this time,
and were close to the cottage gate. It lay
open, and Cæsar ran up to the prim little green
door.

"Come here, sir," called Clare; "please let
him have the basket again, Mr. Ward. Old
Willcox reared him for me, from a puppy, and
he likes to see him at his tricks. Thank you.
Now then, go on, Cæsar."

Her hand was on the open gate, her face
turned away from the cottage, towards George
—it was no easier to her to say good-bye than
to him, he thought; but it must be said, so he
began to say it.

"Then, Miss Carruthers, here I must leave
you; and soon I must leave Amherst."

Perhaps he hoped she would repeat the
invitation of yesterday. She did not; she only said:

"Thank you very much for your escort, Mr.
Ward. Good-bye."

It was the coldest, most constrained of adieux.
He felt it so, and yet he was not altogether
dissatisfied; he would have been more so, had
she retained the natural grace of her manner
and the sweet gaiety of her tone. He would
have given much to touch her hand at parting,
but she did not offer it; but with a bow passed
up the little walk to the cottage door, and in
a moment the door had closed upon her, and
she was lost to his sight.

He lingered upon the high road from which
he could see the cottage, and gazed at the window,
in the hope of catching another glimpse
of Clare; but suddenly remembering that she
might perhaps see him from the interior of the
room, and be offended by his doing so, he
walked briskly away in a frame of mind hard to
describe, and with feelings of a conflicting
character. Above the tumult of new-born love, of
pride, rage, mortification, anger, hope, the trust
of youth in itself, and dawning resolutions of
good, there was this thought, clear and
prominent: