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feasibility of this. "But what will you do with Arthur? You have him still on your hands?"

Both of them by tacit agreement seemed to put on one side the supposition that Captain Reid would for the present provide for any one but himself.

"No, you have not," he continued. "I am only joking, of course; you know me well enough to be sure that I am not likely to want to forego the responsibility I have undertaken for him. You can't want your little brother to suffer on your account; you must be satisfied to let him continue to be my charge. Nor can you help my continuing to pay you your salary until you are able to support yourself. Now, surely, you will not be satisfied to hold this position? If our old relations are to be broken off, let us at least consider how we stand as a matter of business. Remember that you are still my secretary till the engage

ment is formally concluded. Come, Hilda," he continued, noticing the effect of his words, "you see that I am my sober self again, and you are a woman of sense if ever there was one; come and take a walk, and let us discuss the thing in a business-like way. You have not been out to-day, I see; a walk will do you good."

Hilda caught gladly at this; she would feel freer and safer in the open air; and rising from her chair, she went up-stairs to get her hat. No other preparation was required on this sultry day, and she came down directly. "But you had better bring an umbrella," he said, as they were passing out of the little hall, "for it looks like rain; let me carry this one for you. This is the Captain's, I suppose; he has had so much to think of he has forgotten to take it with him." Hilda smiled; it was the first smile she had given him, reminding him of her old self.

CHAPTER XXXI.

They passed down the lane to the river, and then took the towpath by the bank. There were a good many people strolling along it, dressed in their Sunday clothes, and several boats on the water.

The bells of Rainham church began to ring for afternoon service.

what he meant, without replying, and he went on

"I don't scoff at Christianity, be it observed; I wish I could believe in it, I should be happier and better. And I am not in the least proud of my unbelief; I simply feel an incapacity for belief-that is, for dogmatic Christianity as generally accepted. And very sorry I should be to see the rest of my countrymen sharing my opinions. It would be an evil day for England if ever that came to pass; for whether Christianity be true not, I am sure it makes the world better and happier. The working classes, it is true, have most of them no religion to speak of, but they get the benefit of the reflected Hilda looked up at him to see Christianity of other people; and

"Hilda," observed Clifford, "you never go to church; you are like me in that respect. You have been baptised, no doubt, but you are not practically a Christian. Only there is this difference between us; I am an unbeliever because I can't help myself; you are are one, just as so many others are, because you have never thought about the matter one way or the other."

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that, and the arm of the law, keep them in order, otherwise we should be in bad case. My friends the Bryants are just like you, except that they go to church on Sunday mornings, when it is fine, as a sort of fetich, and to avoid scandalising their neighbours; otherwise they are perfect heathens, and never give religion a thought from one week's end to the other. But they, too, get the benefit of other people's Christianity the rector dines with them frequently, and the curate comes to lawn-tennis almost every afternoon. The girls are very nice, but they would be nicer still if their conduct was guided by something higher than mere custom and convention. So that, you see, Hilda, feeling for you as you know I do I shall not frighten you by saying so much-I should admire you still more if you were a religious woman, and I should be glad to see you different in this respect, under ordinary circumstances. Just now I am selfish enough

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He stopped speaking here, as they were just passing a man and his wife sauntering along with a family of children, the man carrying a baby. After they had passed this party, their attention diverted by a steam-launch coming up the river at a great pace, and making a great wash. It was just passing a man in a skiff. Somebody called out that the skiff would be swamped, and they stopped involuntarily to see the result. The skiff escaped, and they continued their walk. Then he began again.

"Have you ever thought how curiously the marriage ceremony varies in different countries and among different peoples?"

"Robert," said Hilda, with downcast eyes, speaking for the first time, and hurrying her steps in

stinctively, "to what purpose is all this?"

66

Why, surely, my meaning must be plain. In all and each of these cases the ceremony is nothing in itself. It is of importance only as it gives the wife and husband certain rights, and prevents the husband from ill-using or deserting the wife. In many countries there is nothing solemn, still less sacred, about the institution in itself. The religious part of the ceremony is a mere tag to the legal contract, and doesn't render it at all more binding. The religious sanction has value only for the religious. The marriages best observed, as those of the patriarchs, were not celebrated by any formalities at all. The tie in that case was one of simple confidence. And nothing can be more matter-of-fact than an English marriage before a registrar. If all men were good and kind and honest, there would be no need to bind them by legal ties-the bond of love and honesty would be sufficient. Such a man would not need a legal bond to make him true and faithful to the woman who had given him her confidence."

"There is a storm coming," interrupted Hilda, looking up; "I think we had better be turning."

Clifford, too, looked round him. The sky had grown blacker, and just then a flash of lightning and the roll of thunder proclaimed the approach of the storm. Hilda turned, and he was fain to turn too, and they began to walk homewards.

66 Because you make me cut short what I have to say, Hilda," he said presently, "it is, I hope, that you understand my meaning, and will listen to my prayer?"

"Oh, Robert," she replied, in a tone of distress, and again hastening her steps, "why speak any more of what can never be?"

Clifford did not answer her at once. They were again overtaking the family they had passed before, and were themselves overtaken by others hurrying home: they were not sufficiently alone for him to pour out the fulness of his heart. Now they came to the lane which led up from the river to Hilda's cottage, unoccupied, as they turned into it, by any save themselves. He stopped, and taking her hand, made her stop too.

"Hear me out, Hilda dear," he said, in a low yet earnest voice. "My happiness is so bound up in you that I cannot let you go till you have heard my whole case."

"Dear Robert," said Hilda, pleadingly, "why go on this way? Why set your heart on what you ought to know is impossible?"

"But why is it impossible? If you were surrounded with friends and relations, who would take the conventional view, and deem you disgraced by coming to share my fortunes, do you think I do not love you too well to ask you to do what would lower you in their eyes? It is because you are alone in the world, like myself, and worse than alone, with worthless relatives from whom you should be glad to escape, and having only yourself to think of, that I ask you to make me happy, and yourself happy too. For I believe you love me a little, though not as I love you. Come, Hilda, it is not such a dreadful fate.' Hilda, with averted eyes, shook her head sadly.

"Then perhaps it is that you do not love me after all? And I have befooled myself and persecuted you for nothing?"

Hilda looked at him gently and sorrowfully. "You know it is not that, Robert: you have my whole heart; why not be satisfied with that, and let me go, thinking the best of me?"

"There it is. I want to think the best of you; to think of you as gentle, and loving, and trustful."

"But you would despise me, nevertheless; not just now perhaps, but by-and-by, when your fancy

"Fancy! Hilda, is this the way you jest with my love? You cannot be in earnest to speak like that. You know that I am not light and fickle. If I thought it possible that the time should ever come when I should love and cherish and respect you a whit less than if you were my wedded wife, why then, dearly as I love you, I would not ask for you. But you know there is no fear of this; you know that you can trust me. You know in your heart that I should show my sense of your sacrifice by greater and fuller respect."

"But I could not respect myself. Please let me go, Robert," she added, trying to withdraw her hands.

"There you are again," he cried eagerly, and still holding her, "with your conventional notions. A woman sells herself to a man she is indifferent to, or even despises, and because the sale of her person is legalised, and made the subject of a

religious ceremony, forsooth, performed over the contract, it is honourable and respectable. This, if you like, is a mere concession to the requirements of society-something to be ashamed of-legalised dishonour, which goes on every day. If my cousin had sold herself to me, as she was minded to, and I had bought her, there would indeed have been real loss of self-respect. Marriage without love must always be immodest and disgraceful, if you look at the thing rightly; but there will be nothing to feel shame for in such a union as ours, based on mutual love and confidence."

The lightning flashed round them,

and the peals of thunder came nearer and louder. Hilda looked round, anxious and scared.

"Nay," said he, releasing her hand, "if you fear the storm, Hilda, I will not detain you; but you are close at home; there is time to gain shelter if the rain comes. But oh, Hilda, do not cast me off rashly! Think how much is at stake for both of us! I will not persecute you or come again. I will take my answer now; but oh, pray, be wise and kind do not crush all hope out of me! We should be so happy together; we shall be so miserable apart! Again, I say, I know and appreciate the sacrifice I ask you to make; but if you love me as I love you, you will not esteem the sacrifice too great."

"But I am not alone," pleaded Hilda, "there is my brother; think how he would despise me when he grows up."

"What would he know about it?" said her lover eagerly, her hesitation raising an ecstatic throb of hope in his breast; "we should be as man and wife in his eyes, as we should be before the world. Who would know our secret? should not stay here, of course; we would go away abroad, to America, anywhere, so long as we were together but we would take Arthur with us; the boy would look on me as a brother."

We

"But have you thought," said Hilda, blushing, "that there may be others whose disgrace would follow from-from their

"Their mother? Hilda, darling, do you think that I have not thought with rapture that you might be the mother of my children? You speak of disgrace; but where would they be worse than their father? Hilda, is it possible you do not know that I am an illegitimate son myself? But ah! how different was my case! Really

VOL. CXXX.-NO. DCCLXXXIX.

born in shame; the mother kept away and visited in secret, the son never publicly acknowledged, and brought up under an assumed name! Why, then, should I care for the conventions of society? With you it is different; and yet the sacrifice is not all on one side. I still keep part of my fortune although renouncing my cousin; that is, so long as I do not marry before her, I am legally entitled to it. But do you not see that in proposing such a union with you as I have dared to build my happiness upon, I feel myself to be taking advantage of a mere quibble? I should be in my own eye retaining everything I could wish for, yet practically evading the conditions of the will. I say nothing of the sacrifice of the bulk of my fortune, and with it the abandonment of all my schemes of life, because, even if I had never met you, I think the condition of marrying my cousin would have been too great a price to pay for keeping it; but it is something for a man who is perhaps a little sensitive on such points to feel for the rest of his life that he is holding the property which he does retain

on

terms which do not appear honourable to himself."

Hilda turned her face towards him for an instant. He thought he could detect a look of uncertainty and hesitation. Could it be that he had convinced her at last, and that she was yielding?

There was silence for a minute while he stood eagerly scanning the expression of her now averted face. It was first broken by Hilda.

Her reply, undeceiving him, dashed away his hopes. "You speak of sacrifices," she said, sadly; "I cannot vie with you in nobility of aim, but think at least of what I am sacrificing too for what you must know to be right. nothing of myself, and what I am

I say

giving up, and no doubt I shall be able to earn a living in some way; but is it nothing to have deprived my poor little brother of so good a friend?"

66 But you have not deprived him," cried Clifford. "Do you suppose for a moment that I would allow any consideration of your material comfort to affect your decision? that I would tempt you with the prospect of a life of ease combined with what you persist in thinking to be vice on the one side, contrasted with a life of want and hardship combined with virtue on the other? Vice and virtue indeed! I did think that you would rise superior to such conventions. No, Hilda, whether you take me or not, half my remaining small fortune is yours in any case; and a part goes on to your little brother Arthur if you die before he is grown up and started in life. So much is settled in any case. The deed is not actually drawn, but the lawyers have got my instructions. So you cannot escape out of the difficulty in that way, consoling yourself with the belief that you have purchased the unhappiness of both of us by a great sacrifice. There is only one sacrifice asked of you, or possible for you, such as it is, to me a priceless bounty-the gift of your own sweet self. Hilda, dearest, surely you will never refuse me this?"

As he finished speaking, the dark clouds above them were suddenly loosened, and poured down a deluge of rain. Hilda stood irresolute for an instant and then turned towards the house.

"Yes, that will be best," he said, hastily; "you must not stay here to get wet. Here, come under this shelter," and he opened the umbrella and held it over her.

A few steps brought them to the garden-gate. He opened it for her, and she passed in, and then turned round towards him as he was about to follow.

"No," he said, as if divining her intention to stop him. "I don't want to come farther with you today. Give me only one little word of comfort, Hilda, and I will leave you and hurry off to make ready for taking you away to new and happier scenes. Only one little word, Hilda darling," he added, but in a less hopeful voice, noticing with alarm the set expression of her face.

"Oh, Robert," she said, sadly, "I thought before you came that I could not be more unhappy than I was; but you have made me far more wretched now. You will be angry with me now, and think me hard and cruel; but in time to come, perhaps, you will judge me more kindly, and say that I have done right."

"I see what it is," he cried, bitterly, "I have been mistaken in you; you do not really care for me as I do for you. It is easy to take this high tone where the heart is not in question."

"Robert, Robert," pleaded the poor girl, "why say such cruel things?"

"Cruel! It is you who are cruel. What sort of love is this which wants all the sacrifice to be on one side? Farewell then, Hilda, since farewell it must be. I thought you to be soft and sweet and loving, but I have been carried away by my own fancies. You are really hard and selfish. You require everything from me and will give nothing in return." And he strode away in the storm, and turning the corner of the lane, was lost to view.

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