, to-night maybe."
Her glance no longer met his, but he was conscious that she had lost
something of her serenity.
"Are you sorry, Elizabeth?" he ventured.
To pass mutely out of her life had suddenly seemed an impossibility, and
his tenderness and yearning trembled in his voice. She answered
obliquely, by asking:
"Must you go?"
"I want to get away from Mount Hope. I want to leave it all,--all but
you, dear!" he said. "You haven't answered me, Elizabeth; will you
care?"
"I am sorry," she said slowly, and the light in her gray-blue eyes
darkened.
She heard the sigh that wasted itself on his lips.
"I am glad you can say that,--I wish you would look up!" he said
wistfully.
"Are you going to-night?" she questioned.
"Yes, but I am coming back. I shan't find that you have forgotten me
when I come, shall I, Elizabeth?"
She looked up quickly into his troubled face, and it was not the warm
firelight that brought the rich color in a sudden flame to her cheeks.
"I shall not forget you."
There was a determined gentleness in her speech and manner that gave him
courage.
"I haven't any right to talk to you in this way; I know I haven't,
but--Oh, I want you, Elizabeth!" And all at once he was on his knees
beside her, his arms about her. "Don't forget me, dear! I love you, I
Love you--I want you--Oh, I want you for my wife!"
The girl looked into the passionate face upturned to hers, and then her
head drooped. And so they remained long; his dark head resting in her
arms; her fair face against it.
"Why do you go, John?" she asked at length, out of the rich content of
their silence.
"I haven't any choice, dear heart; there isn't any place for me here. I
have thought it all over, and I know I am doing the wise thing,--I am
quite sure of this! I shall write you of everything that concerns me!"
he added hastily, as he heard the tread of the general's slippered feet
in the hall.
North released her hands as the general entered the room. Elizabeth sank
back in her c