"Let us stay here, my beloved," he whispered. "I have something sweet to

tell you. Upon mine honour, I can keep my secret no longer."

The innocent child! Who could blame her for listening to it?--at first

with a little fear and a little reluctance, but gradually resigning her

whole heart to the charm of his soft syllables and his fervent manner,

until she gave him the promise he begged for,--love that was to be for

him alone, love for him alone among all the sons of men.

What an enchanted afternoon it was! how all too quickly it fled away,

one golden moment after another! and what a pang it gave her to find at

the end that there must be lying and deception! For, somehow, she had

been persuaded to acquiesce in her lover's desire for secrecy. As for

the lie, he told it with the utmost air of candour.

"Yes, we had a beautiful sail; and how enchanting the banks above here

are! Aunt, I am at your service to-morrow, if you wish to see them."

"Oh, your servant, Captain, but I am an indifferent sailor; and I trust

I have too much respect for myself and my new frocks, to crowd them into

a river cockboat!"

In a few minutes Joanna and the elder came in. He had called for her on

his way home; for he liked the society of the young and beautiful, and

there were many hours in which he thought Joanna fairer than her sister.

Then tea was served in a pretty parlour with Turkish walls and coloured

windows, which, being open into the garden, framed lovely living

pictures of blossoming trees. Every one was eating and drinking,

laughing and talking; so Katherine's unusual silence was unnoticed,

except by the elder, who indeed saw and heard everything, and who knew

what he did not see and hear by that kind of prescience to which wise

and observant years attain. He saw that the cakes Katherine dearly loved

remained upon her plate untasted, and that she was unusually,

suspiciously quiet.

After tea he walked down the garden with Colonel Gordon. The lily bed

was near the river; and he made the gathering of some lilies for

Katherine an excuse for going close enough to the pier to see how the

boat lay, and whether the oars had been moved from the exact position in

which he had placed them. And he found the boat rocking at its moorings,

tied with his own peculiar knot. It told him everything, and he was

sincerely troubled at the discovery.




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