as soon have thought of telling a falsehood the moment before he knew he was to enter upon eternity as telling a comforting lie to this girl now.
“I must. Theo, forgive me?”
“I have nothing to forgive,” she said with a strong effort. She had made her appeal, poor child, and it had failed, and now her pride prompted her to show him that the failure could be borne. Her pride and a something softer; there was such misery in the man’s eyes, that her generous woman’s nature urged her not to increase it by showing him how fully it was shared.
“I must go; better I had never come,” he muttered, after a short pause.
“Don’t say that; it has been a very pleasant time—to me.”
“And to me, too; too pleasant—far too pleasant. You have been the only bright thing my life has known for years, Theo, and I have clouded the brightness.”
He bent his gaze upon her as he spoke, and Theo’s face quivered under it.
“Oh, Mr. Ffrench, it has been so pleasant; why must it end?”
“Don’t call me ‘Mr. Ffrench,’ for God’s sake—call me Harold, and don’t ask me why it must end.”
“I only meant,” she replied proudly, “why must your visit to Houghton end so soon, if you find it pleasant?”
“Theo, dear little Theo, don’t reproach me. I know what you mean, I know what you cam’t help meaning, and I can’t”
He stopped suddenly.
“Can’t what?” Theo asked timidly; the hearing might be painful, but she would bear it.
“Can’t see you suffer, and can’t help your doing so. You’ll soon forget me, Theo; I can’t hope that you will remember me long. Will you forget me, darling?” he added passionately, in an outburst of tenderness that startled the girl.
“No. Oh, don’t speak in that way. Oh, Harold, you won’t go.”
They had come home during this conversation, for the things spoken had been spoken at intervals and had taken some time to say. Now they were in the little drawing-room alone, and even the twilight was dying out of the sky. Theo’s last plaint went straight to his heart, and his heart governed his head for a brief space.
“Theo!” his arm went round her as he spoke and her head rested upon his breast, and there was such passionate love in the way his hand clasped hers.
All the misery and uncertainty of the last hour fled from her mind, and she was deliriously happy. She never doubted what this embrace should result in; she never doubted but that it was the prelude to a never-ending series of the same, on which the world should smile. Very confidingly did she submit to his caresses, very modestly and sweetly did she respond to them. The dream was bright that she dreamt in those moments—bright and pure; and ho shrank from the task of awakening her from it, his heart still governing his head in an unaccustomed way.
“Why awaken her from it at all?” he asked himself presently. “Love would be more to her than the world.” Thus he thought for a moment or two, and then he did her the justice of repenting him of the thought. Removing her head from his shoulder he bent down and pressed his lips to her forehead, and pleaded for her pardon for the unuttered wrong.
“Theo, forgive me, forgive me?”
“For what?”
“I’ll tell you to-morrow. Let me go now,” he added, disengaging himself from her, “I can’t stand it, Theo.”
“Oh, Harold,” she cried, passionately, “you try me—you try me. Why not now as well as to-morrow, to-morrow that will be so long in coming?”
“No it won’t, poor child, dear little Theo. It will soon come, and you’ll listen, and I shall speak better than now. Let me go, darling; don’t turn your face away, Theo, there’s no harm in it.” When he had so said, he departed, leaving Theo in feverish expectation of that morrow which was to make known to her so much.
THE ROYAL SOVEREIGN.
The permanent attraction in Portsmouth Harbour is, of course, the Victory, Nelson’s Victory, the ship in which that greatest of seamen, and most admirable of heroes, conquered and died; and in which every memorial of him is, to this day, preserved with the most judicious and reverential care. To her, as to his shrine and fittest monument, year after year, an almost daily stream of pilgrims pay an affectionate homage, which is very rarely drawn away by the most striking novelty, or the most attractive object of fresh interest. But the present moment is one in which she is temporarily superseded in the public curiosity, and the vessel which is the observed of all observers is indebted for the attention which she excites, not to her gracefulness of outline or beauty of proportion, for even her architect and her captain, in spite of the professional pride they naturally take in her,
