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332 within sight of the brook, and of a man who stands by its side waiting; and once again the irresistible inclination to take flight, even at this eleventh hour, possesses me; but remembering that if I do shirk my evil task now, I cannot get out of fulfilling it in the future, I walk quickly on, and he, spying my approach, comes forward to greet me.

"My darling," he says, and takes my two bare hands and kisses them; and I look up into his face, without a smile, without a word but he is very blind, he does not see, does not heed. "You have come to tell me that you will make a happy fellow of me at last?"

But I draw my hands out of his, and hide my face in them shivering.

"Are you sorry, dear?" he asks gently. "Are you afraid? It must seem strange to you to promise yourself to any one—to a stranger; you have always been so fond of your own people; but I will be as careful over you, Nell, as gentle. You do not doubt that I can make you happy?"

Then, as I do not answer or lift my face, he goes on—"I have waited so long for this hour, Nell, for so many weary, weary years, sometimes I thought it would never come. If any one wants anything as badly as I want you, he rarely gets it; and you know I have never had any one to care for but you—neither mother sister, nor brother, and I have often noticed that when a man centres his whole happiness in one object it is taken from him. That is why I have always so feared, Nell, that some one would come and take you away from me. That was why I hated your going to Luttrell, for I thought all men must love you as I did, and perhaps a stranger would take your fancy. But when you told me yesterday that no one loved you but me, when I knew that my darling had come back to me safely, then, Nell, my heart was at rest, and I knew a perfect happiness, than which earth could give