like a moment. They had already been aroused two or three times by the roll of baby carriages propelled by nursemaids before the greater volume of music from the Abbey proclaimed that service was over. "Already!" they both cried, with wonder and dismay; and then, for the first time, there was a pause.

"I had so much to talk to you about," he said, " and we have not had time to say a word, have we? Ah! when can we have a good long time to ourselves? Can you escape your Captain to-night, my darling? I should like to shake him by the hand, to thank him for taking care of you; but couldn't you escape from him, my Lottie, to-night?"

Lottie grew a little pale; her heart sank, not with distrust, but with perhaps a little, a very little disappointment. Was this still how it was to be? Just the same anxious diplomacies to secure a meeting, the same risks and chances? This gave her a momentary chill. "It is very difficult," she said. "He is the only one I have to take care of me. He would think it unkind."

"You must not say now the only one, my Lottie-not the only onemy substitute for a little while, who will soon have to give me up his place." "But he will not like to give it up now; not till he knows; perhaps not even then-for his daughter, you know————”

"Ah! it was she who married Dropmore. Lottie, my love, my darling, I cannot live through the evening without you. Could you not come again, at the same time as last night? It is early dark, heaven be praised. Take your walk with him, and then give him the slip, and come here, sweet, here to me. I shall be watching, counting the moments. It is bad enough to be obliged to get through the day without you. Ah! it is the Signor's day. The Signor is all rapt up in his music. He will never suspect anything. I shall be able to see you at least, to hear you, to look at you, my lovely darling---"

After a moment, said Lottie, "That was one thing I wanted to ask you about. You know why the Signor gives me lessons. Will it be right now to go on with him? now that everything is changed? Should not I give them up?"

"Give them up!" cried Rollo, with a look of dismay. "My darling, what are you thinking of? They are more necessary, more important than ever. Of course, we will pay for them after. Oh, no fear but he will be repaid; but no, no, my love, my sweet, you must not give them up!" She looked at him with something like anxiety in her eyes, not knowing what he could mean. What was it? Lottie could not but feel a little disappointed. It seemed that everything was to go on just the same as before.

"I shall see you there," he said; "so long as we are in the same place everything is sweet; and I have always taken so much interest in your dear voice that no one can suspect. And to-night you will comepromise me, my darling-just after the service, when it is getting dark?" "Yes," she whispered, with a sigh-then started from his side. "I

saw some one among the trees. The old Chevaliers are coming up for their morning walk. Let me go now-you must let me go-Mr. Ridsdale

"Mr. Ridsdale! How can I let my Lottie go before she has called me by my right name?"

"Oh, I must not stay. I see people coming," said Lottie, disappointed, troubled, afraid of being seen, yet angry with herself for being afraid. "Mr. Ridsdale-Rollo, dear Rollo-let me go now"Till it is time for the Signor "" And he did let her go, with a hasty withdrawal on his own part, for unmistakably there were people to be seen moving about among the trees, not indeed coming near their corner, yet within sight of them. Lottie left him hurriedly, not looking back. She was ashamed, though she had no cause for shame. She ran down the bank to the little path which led to the foot of the hill, and to the town. She could not go up and run the risk of being seen going home by the Dean's Walk. She drew her veil over her face, and her cheeks burned with blushes: she was ashamed, though she had done no wrong. And Rollo stood looking down after her, watching her with a still more acute pang. There were things which were very painful to him, which did not affect her. That a girl like Lottie should go away alone, unattended, and walk through the street, with no one with her, a long round, annoyed him beyond measure. He ought to have gone with her, or some one ought to be with her. But then what could he do? He might as well give up the whole matter at once as betray all he was meditating to his people in this way. But he watched her, leaning over the low parapet, with trouble and shame. The girl whom he loved ought not to go about unattended, and this relic of chivalry, fallen into conventionality, moved him more than greater things. He did not object, like Ferdinand, to let his Miranda carry his load for him; but it did trouble him that she should walk through St. Michael's by herself, though in the sweet security of the honest morning. Thus minds differ all over the world.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

LOTTIE'S SIDE OF THE QUESTION.

LOTTIE made her way down the slopes alone, with feelings which had greatly changed from those of a few minutes ago. How happy she had been! The hour that had passed under the falling leaves had been like paradise; but the portals of exit from paradise are perhaps never So sweet as those of entrance. Her coming away was with a sense of humiliation and shame. As she wound her way down her favourite by road winding among the shrubs and trees, she could not help feeling that she was making her escape, as if from some guilty meeting, some clandestine rendezvous. In all her life Lottie had never known this sensa

of people

tion before. She had been shy, and had shrunk from the gaze who had stared at her, in admiration of her beauty or of her singing, but in her shyness there had always been the pride of innocence; and never before had she been afraid to meet any eye, or felt it necessary to steal away, to keep out of sight as if she were guilty. She had not done anything wrong, but yet she had all the feeling of having done something wrong the desire to escape, the horror of detection. To some the secret meeting, the romance and mystery, would have been only an additional happiness, but Lottie, proud and frank and open-hearted, could not bear the very thought of doing anything of which she was ashamed. The sensation hurt and humiliated her. All had been very different before : to meet her lover unawares, yet not without intention, with a delightful element of chance in each encounter-to look out secretly for him, yet wonder innocently to find him-to let her steps be drawn here or there by a sense of his presence, with a fond pretence of avoiding him, a sweet certainty of meeting him-all these risks and hazards of emotion had been natural. But Lottie felt with a sudden jar of her nerves and mind that this ought not to continue so. She had felt a little wondering disappointment on the previous night when he had asked her to meet him again, without any suggestion that he should go to her, or make the new bond between them known. Even then there had been a faint jar, a sigh of unfulfilled expectation. But now their hurried parting, her own flight, the little panic lest they should be seen, and discovery follow, made Lottie's heart sick. How well she could imagine how this ought to have been! They ought not to have fled from each other or been afraid of any man's eye. It ought not to have mattered whether the Signor or any one suspected. Blushing and shy, yet with full faith in the sympathy of all who saw her, Lottie should have walked down the Dean's Walk with her betrothed: she should have avoided no one. She should have been shame-faced but not ashamed. What a difference between the two! all the difference that there is between the soft blush of happiness and the miserable burning of guilt. And this was what ought to have been. Half the misery of Lottie-as half the misery of all imaginative inexperienced women-arose from the pain and disappointment of feeling that those she loved did not come up to the ideal standard she had set up in her soul. She was disappointed, not so much because of the false position in which she herself was placed (for this, except instinctively, she had but little realised), but because Rollo was not doing, not yet, all that it seemed right for him to do. She would have forced and beaten (had she been able) Law into the fulfilment of his duty, she would even have made him generous to herself, not for the sake of herself, but that he should be a model of brotherhood, an example of all a true man ought to be; and if this was so in the case of her brother, how much more with her lover? If to be harsh as a tyrant or indifferent as a sultan, was the highest ideal of a man's conduct, how much happier many a poor creature would be! It seems a paradox to say so, but it is

true enough; for the worst of all, in a woman's mind, is to feel that the wrong done to her is worse wrong to him, an infringement of the glory of the being whom she would fain see perfect. This, however, is a mystery beyond the comprehension of the crowd. Lottie was used to being disappointed with Law-was she fated to another disappointment more cruel and bitter? She did not ask herself the question, she would not have thought it even, much less said it for all the world; but secretly there was a wonder, a pang, a faintness of failure in her heart.

It is not without an effort, however, that the heart will permanently admit any such disappointment. As Lottie went her way thus drooping, ashamed and discouraged, thinking of everything that had been done and that ought to have been done, there drifted vaguely across her mind a kind of picture of Rollo's meeting with her father, and what it would be. She had no sooner thought of this than a glow of alarm came over her face, bringing insensibly consolation to her mind. Rollo and her father! What would the Captain say to him? He would put on his grand air, in which even Lottie had no faith; he would exhibit himself in all his vain greatness, in all his self-importance, jaunty and fine, to his future son-in-law. He would give Lottie herself a word of commendation in passing, and he would spread himself forth before the stranger as if it was he whom Rollo wanted and cared for. Lottie's steps quickened ont of the languid pace into which they had fallen, and her very forehead grew crimson as she realised that meeting. Thank heaven, it had not taken place yet! Rollo had been too wise, too kind, too delicate to humble his love by hurrying into the presence of the Captain, into the house where the Captain's new wife now reigned supreme. The new wife-she too would have a share in it, she would be called into counsel, she would give her advice in everything, and claim a right to interfere. Oh, Lottie thought, how foolish she had been! how much wiser was Rollo, no doubt casting about in his mind how it was best to be done, and pondering over it carefully to spare her pain. She felt herself enveloped in one blush from the crown of her head to the sole of her feet; but how sweet was that shame! It was she who was foolish, not he who had failed. Her cheeks burned with a penitential flush, but he was faultless. There was nothing in him to disappoint, but only the most delicate kindness, the tenderest care of her. How could she have thought otherwise? It was not possible that Rollo should like secret meetings, should fear discovery. In the first days of their acquaintance he had shown no reluctance to come to the humble little lodge. But now-his finer feeling shrank from it now-he wanted to take his love away from that desecrated place, not to shame her by prying into its ignoble mysteries. He was wiser, better, kinder than anyone. And she was ashamed of herself, not any longer of anything else, ashamed of her poor, mean, unworthy interpretation of him; and as happy in her new, changed consciousness of guilt, and penitence and self-disgust-as happy as if, after her downfall into earth, she had now safely got back into heaven.

By this time she had got out of the wooded Slopes, and over the stile, and into the steep thoroughfare at the foot of the Abbey walls, the pavement of St. Michael's Hill. Lottie did not feel that there was any harm in walking through the street alone, as Rollo thought there was. She wanted no attendant. A little bodyguard, invisible, but with a radiance going out from them which shone about her, attended upon her waylove and innocence and happiness, no longer with drooping heads but brave and sweet, a band invisible, guaranteeing their charge against all ills. As she went along the street with this shining retinue, there was nothing in all the world that could have harmed her; and nobody wanted to harm the girl-of whom, but that she was proud, no soul in St. Michael's had an unkind word to say. Everybody knew the domestic trouble that had come upon her, and all the town was sorry for Lottieall the more that there was perhaps a human satisfaction in being sorry for one whose fault was that she was proud. She met Captain Temple as she entered the Abbey Gate. Many thoughts about her had been in the kind old man's heart all the morning, and it was partly to look for her, after vain walks about the Abbey Precincts, that he was turning his steps towards the town. He came up to her eagerly, taking her hand between his. He thought she must have been wandering out disconsolate, no matter where, to get away from the house which was no longer a fit home for one like her. He was so disturbed and anxious about her, that the shadow which was in his mind seemed to darken over Lottie, and cast a reflection of gloom upon her face. "You have been out early, my dear? Why did you not send for me to go with you? After matins I am always at your service," he said.

But there was none of the gloom which Captain Temple imagined in Lottie's face. She looked up at him out of the soft mist of her own musings with a smile. "I went out before matins," she said; "I have been out a long time. I had-something to do."

"My poor child! I fear you have been wandering, keeping out of the way," said the old Captain. Then another thought seized him. Had she begun already to serve the new wife and do her errands? "My dear," he said, "what have you been doing? you must not be too good-you must not forget yourself too much. Your duty to your father is one thing, but you must not let yourself be made use of now-you must recollect your own position, my dear."

My position?" she looked up at him bewildered; for she was thinking only of Rollo, while he thought only of her father's wife.

"Yes, Lottie, my dear child, you have thought only of your duty hitherto, but you must not yield to every encroachment. You must not allow it to be supposed that you give up everything."

66

'Ah," said Lottie, lifting to him eyes which seemed to swim in a haze of light; "to give up everything would be so- I don't know what you mean," she added hastily, in a half terrified tone. As for Captain Temple, he was quite bewildered, and did not know what to think.