'My dear love,' he said, after a scarcely perceptible pause-interval enough for a whisper from his better angel-' do you think I should love you any better for three boxes of clothes, or for the finest wedding-gown a French milliner could make you ? Remember that story of patient Grisel I read you one day. It was in her utter lowliness and humility that fair young wife seemed sweetest to her stern husband. I will love you as her knight loved Enid, dear, in a faded silk. Burden yourself with nothing next Thursday morning. It will be my delight and pride to buy you all manner of prettinesses-from ivory-backed brushes for that beautiful hair, to glass slippers like Cinderella's, if you choose.'

He spoke lightly, anxious to conceal feelings that were by no means of the lightest, and won a faint smile from Grace Redmayne, to whom his most trivial remark seemed the very essence of cleverness. She would come. All her doubts and fears and little difficulties resolved themselves into that one question, 'What is there in the world I would not do for your sake?'

It was dusk by the time the business was settled. They had walked on to Kingsbury, where Grace gave her aunt's message to the family grocer, while Mr.

Walgrave waited for her outside the shop. This being done, he walked back with her through the lanes and fields till they were very close to Brierwood, talking of the future all the time-that future which was to be a very bright one, according to Hubert Walgrave. In sight of the old farmhouse, where lights were gleaming from the lower windows, they parted.

'Only for a week, darling,' he whispered, as he kissed the pale cold face.

She did not answer him; and he felt that she was shivering.

'My dearest girl, be brave,' he said cheerily. 'It is not such a hard road to happiness after all; and it shall be no fault of mine if your future life is not all happiness.'

CHAPTER XVII.

BEYOND HIS REACH.

NOTHING happened to prevent Grace Redmayne's elopement; and having once given her promise, she had no thought of breaking it. Her fate was sealed from that moment in the lane when she said, 'I will come.' To break faith with him was a crime she could not contemplate. Yet throughout the intervening week she keenly felt any little kindness, any show of interest or motherly care, from sharptongued aunt Hannah, and was moved to tears more than once by her uncle's rough tenderness.

She was going from them almost for ever, she thought. It was hardly likely that Mr. Walgrave -who was a proud man, she fancied, despite his friendly ways at Brierwood-would allow his wife to associate much with her homely kinsfolk.

He will not part me from my father,' she said to herself. That would be too cruel. But I don't suppose he will let me see my uncle and aunt very often.'

She suffered bitterly during that brief interval -suffered sharp agonies of self-reproach, feeling herself the vilest of deceivers. If the time had been

longer, she could hardly have borne up against all this mental misery, and held to her promise. Perhaps Mr. Walgrave had foreseen this when he made the time so short. She could neither eat nor sleep under this burden of secret care-spent her nights in watching for the morning, her days in a strange unsettled state; wandering about the farm in the chill November weather; creeping in and out of the rooms-touching familiar things absently-wondering when she would see them again. The piano which her father had given her—the dear old piano which she had been so proud of possessing as her very own-would her husband let her send for that by and by, when they were settled in their new home? Not the finest grand that Erard or Broadwood ever made could be so precious to her as this clumsy old cottage, by a nameless manufacturer.

Their marriage was to be secret, he had told her; but what did that mean? Secret so far as his world was concerned, she supposed; not secret from hers. He had given her permission to say what she pleased to her aunt in her farewell letter, except in that one

matter of his name. And by and by, when their honeymoon was over, he would bring her to Brierwood to see her aunt and uncle, perhaps. She brightened at the thought. How proud she would be to appear before them, leaning on his arm! how proud they must needs feel to see her married to a gentleman! and would it not be a pleasant surprise for her father, on his coming home, to find his darling had achieved such high fortune ?

So in a strange flutter of doubt and fear, lightened now and then by brief flashes of hopefulness, the days went by until the cheerless morning which was to see Grace Redmayne's farewell to Brierwood. On the previous night she made no attempt to rest —what rest had she had since that meeting in the lane ?—nay, had she ever known pure and perfect repose after that fatal hour in which she first loved Hubert Walgrave? She had her small preparations to make, and trifling as these were, in her fluttered and nervous state of mind, they occupied a long time. She packed a carpet-bag with the things which seemed most essential for her to take. She had no elaborate travelling-bag bristling with silvergilt lids and stoppers, like a small battery of guns, such as Miss Vallory considered indispensable for