is probably shooting with the rest at Luttrell. I shall never have a chance of seeing him here either, for after to-day I will not come this way."
I lift my eyes, and see Paul Vasher coming across the field of rye to meet me. I do not speak or stir; the hour has come, and must be met; and somehow, perhaps it is because my heart is so filled with George's misery, as to leave no room for pity of my own, I feel a kind of indifference. "Nothing matters much now," I say to myself, as Paul stands before me. He makes me no greeting, nor do I him; he only looks into my pale, tear-stained face with a quick triumphant gladness that vaguely surprises me. Why should he look so eager and happy when his true love is nowhere near?
"I have come to claim the fulfilment of your promise," he says; then as I lift my eyes to his, he catches and holds them fast to his; and, lo! my listlessness falls from me like a garment, and a living writhing pain stirs and leaps in my dull heart, and I know that the old glamour is upon me, that all the world has faded away, and that in all my past, present, and future, naught has place save the dark beloved face that is looking so intently into mine.
"You never broke your word yet," he says, and his hands tightened their hold upon mine. "You will keep your promise, Nell."
With his eyes upon mine, with the resistless power he ever wielded over me compelling me, I open my lips to speak the truth as before my God . . . then I tear my hands out of his, my eyes from his.
"I cannot," I say, with a bitter cry, "oh, I cannot!"
"Is it Paul?" he asks, folding his arms about me, and pressing my head down against his breast; "tell me, sweetheart."
"Tell me her name," I ask, in a whisper; "tell me quick."
"Nell. Do you understand now?"
As he lifts my arms and lays them about his neck, as he bends
