poor Gregory, pressing his lips upon her
head. "My life! my love! Harm from my
hand? Never! Never! Harm to myself
first. But you love me, too?"

"No," said Norah, "I do not love you,
cousin."

"You do not love me? Then you love
him? Woe to him!"

"Cousin," said Norah, faintly, "I do not
love him. I love no one."

Norah never knew, in after years, how
much was true, and how much fancy, of what
she thought she remembered of the time when
her cousin leapt the meadow-hedge, and she
told him, with the courage of despair, that
she did not love him.

Twilight was drawing on. In a distant
part of the park, Edmund Thorold was seen
by a pair of watchful eyes to walk by the
river-side. The youth was thinking of the
scene beneath the beech-trees; lamenting
over his ill-fortune; grieving that he had
tempted fate too soon; but, above all, grieving
that he must leave the first and only
woman he had yet found to realise his ideal:
that he must leave her to slavery and misery,
while he went out to desolation and despair.
He sat down on the branch of a tree
over-hanging the river, just where it ran most
rapidly, through the arches of the bridge,—
where it was deepest, wildest, and noisiest.
A stealthy step crept up to him as he sat;
but he saw nothing: his face was pressed
upon his arms, and these were laid against
the tree, and the rushing water deadened
every sound. Suddenly he heard a cry. He
started up. A dark face glared over him; a
hand was on his throat; and he was swung
through the air like a child, then dashed
heavily upon the rocks below. A slight
moan, a faint stirring of the limbs, the broken
eddy boiling and roaring for a moment, then
closing again; and the river ran reddened
over a bleeding corpse.

That night Lucy Thorold eloped with
Gregory Lyndon.

CHAPTER THE SEVENTH.

THE next day Lyndon Hall was in
confusion. Edmund missing—not at home all
night; Lucy flown; Norah like a ghost;
Gregory seen stealing about the place in a
mysterious and burglarious fashion,—all
these wild reports met Colonel Lyndon as
he descended to the breakfast-room, where
Launcelot Thorold, agitated and abashed,
was the only one to greet him. Norah had
not yet come down. It was with great effort
that she came at all, for she was painfully ill.

"What does this mean?" said the Colonel,
angrily. "Is all the household in league to
bewilder me? Do you understand it, Mr.
Thorold? Where are your brother and
sister? Where, too, is Norah? What" (an
untranslatable expletive)" is the meaning of
all this, sir?"

"I do not know where my brother is,"
replied Launcelot. "He has not been at
home all night. My sister, I grieve to
say——" He hesitated.

"Well, sir, what? Speak, Mr. Thorold!
Your sister?" The old Colonel looked
stern, pulled up his stock, and scowled, as if
Launcelot had been the cause of it all.

"My sister——" began Launcelot. But
here he was interrupted by a servant bringing
in a small scented note, written in violet ink.

"If you please, sir, this is for you," said
the man. "Justine, Miss Thorold's maid,
gave it me. Miss Thorold left it for you on
her pincushion."

The Colonel tore it open.

"My dear Uncle," it began—"for so I may soon
hope to address you—at last, my happiness is at hand,
Your nephew Gregory has, at last, understood that
poor little Norah did not love him; no fault of hers,
dear child: she did her best to obey you; but hearts
are sometimes disobedient, and his has followed the—
shall I say it?—first impulse of our introduction: he
has loved me instead. I have known this for some
time, but thought it prudent to be silent. This may
account to you, dear uncle, for much which, at the
time, you misunderstood, but in which I could not set
you right, or enlighten you. To avoid unpleasantness
to you and others, dear Gregory and I have decided
on being married privately, away from Lyndon. When
assured of your approbation—about which, however, I
have no kind of doubt—we shall return to ask your
blessing and recognition. From your expressed kind
feeling for me, I am sure you will be pleased at my
happiness in being made dear Gregory's wife. For
Norah, I dare say she will find a husband nearer to
her taste, and more similar in nature; and perhaps the
two families will be even more closely united yet.
Ask Edmund, dear uncle, where his heart is gone to;
for it has been quite a chasse aux cœurs lately at
Lyndon. I embrace you heartily. When Gregory
and I come home to the Moat, I shall be very near
you, and I shall hope to see you often.

"Your affectionate niece,

"Lucy.

"P.S.—I enclose a note which dear Gregory has
just given me for you. Adieu!—L. T."

Gregory's note was shorter, and more to
the point. It ran thus:

"Dear Sir,—My cause is lost. In searching
among the papers which my father left sealed up in
his lawyer's hands, we found—not a certificate of his
marriage, but a confession, under his own hand and
seal, which has left me a beggar, and the declared
illegitimate son of a Nubian slave.
                                  Yours truly,
                                              " Gregory Lyndon."

The reason of his marriage with Lucy was
clear now.

Few persons would have recognised the
Colonel after he had read Lucy's insolent
and Gregory's defiant letter. His self-
possession vanished. Based on pride, not on self-
control, it could not bear so rude a shock as
this. His military bearing broke down, as if
it had been a pasteboard mannikin paraded
before the world. He stormed, he swore, he
raved and raged, and called Lucy naughty
names, and threatened to shoot Gregory