"You wish me to give up my ride?"
"Dear Paul, where are your wits? To wish it is—to wish it. To say I wish it is to make a fool of myself."
"My wits are with—with something that's forever gone!" And he closed his eyes and contracted his forehead as if in pain. "My youth, my hope,—what shall I call it?—my happiness."
"Ah!" said Margaret, reproachfully, "you have to shut your eyes to say that."
"Nay, what is happiness without youth?"
"Upon my word, one would think I was forty," cried Margaret.
"Well, so long as I'm sixty!"
The young girl perceived that behind these light words there was something very grave. "Paul," she said, "the trouble simply is that you're unwell."
He nodded assent, and with his assent it seemed to her that an unseen hand had smitten the life out of her heart.
"That is what you told your mother?"
He nodded again.
"And what you were unwilling to tell me?"
He blushed deeply. "Naturally," he said.
She dropped his hands and sat down, for very faintness, on a garden bench. Then rising suddenly, "Go, and take your ride," she rejoined. "But, before you go, kiss me once."
And Paul kissed her, and mounted his horse. As she went into the house, she met Father Herbert, who had been watching the young man ride away, from beneath the porch, and who was returning to his study.
"My dear child," said the priest, "Paul is very ill. God grant that, if you manage not to die, it may not be at his expense!"
For all answer, Margaret turned on him, in her passage, a face so cold, ghastly, and agonized, that it seemed a vivid response to his heart-shaking fears. When she reached her room, she sat down on her little bed, and strove to think clearly and deliberately. The old man's words had aroused
