CHAPTER VIII.

REJECTED.

IF in the long picture gallery of Hallington Manor, the ancestral' home of Ralph Pennicuick, but into which he never willingly set foot, Nelly had been contemplating some full-length portrait of Raymond, and had seen it suddenly slip out of its frame, she could have been hardly more astonished than at his appearance before her now in flesh and blood-like an illustration to the biography she had been compiling of herself. If he had been his own ghost, she could never have stared at him with more tremulous affright.

'I am afraid I have alarmed you, Nelly,' said he gently. 'I ought to have remembered that the sand gives no warning of one's approach, though it is such a tell-tale when we have passed by.'

But it was so unexpected, Raymond.'

'Why should it be, Nelly?' The hand she had held out to him he retained for a little, and then relinquished with a pressure that he had of late omitted to use. It was surely only natural that I should come to see you as soon as circumstances admitted of it. I called at the hotel, and Mrs. Wardlaw told me where to find you―you are not sorry to see me, are you?'

Indeed I am not, Raymond.' What were the circumstances,"

she wondered, to which he alluded? Why had he come down now, and not before? Why did he press her hand with such tender meaning? Why did he look at her so lovingly as he had not ventured to do since their talk in that Richmond garden? Was it possible, after all, that he had gained permission to speak to her -as he had been speaking to her in her day-dream five minutes ago? If he had not, he was very cruel, and yet

'You are looking better for the Sandybeach air, dear Nelly, I am delighted to see. You have got back your own sweet roses.'

6

'I am very well,' answered she quickly; it is a very healthy place. How is Mr. Pennicuick ?'

Raymond's face grew dark; she knew at once that it was not by his father's leave that he had come down to see her; she even suspected there had been a quarrel between them.

My father is much the same,' he answered. Strangely altered from the man he was before he last left England, but the same as he has been since his return. Dr. Green does not detect anything organically wrong; but there is something seriously amiss with him. It is more difficult than ever,' he added, after a pause, 'to overcome his prejudices or preconceived opinions upon any subject.'

'That is only to be expected, Raymond,' answered Nelly gently.

Yes, but there is a limit to the forbearance due to an invalid, even when he is one's father: that is to say, our duty to him must not override considerations that affect the happiness of others as well as our own.'

Nelly bowed her head; she knew of course to what he was

alluding, but she would give him no encouragement to pursue the topic.

Perhaps I had no right to say "of others," continued he, after a pause of expectation, even when speaking to you alone?' 'I think you have no right to talk at all to me upon the subject—if it be the one which we agreed together should for the future be a sealed one between us.'

'Except under certain contingencies,' he put in hastily.

'There was one, and only one, Raymond, and you have just informed me that that has not taken place. You are breaking your plighted word in reopening any discussion concerning'

'One moment, Nelly,' interrupted the young man passionately. 'You must have patience with me, and hear me and my cause before dismissing it-and me-for ever. I have not broken faith, as you will acknowledge, in thus addressing you again, in thus, if you will have it so, importuning you again. I am sorry to distress you, I would give my life to save you pain-but then I am pleading for more than life. Moreover, I have an excuse; I am in a different position from that I occupied upon the last occasion when I dared to say, "I love you, dearest."

In a better one then, I hope-that is, for your sake,' she added hastily.

'I thought you would have hoped it for both our sakes," replied he. He had no selfish motive in thus speaking, no desire to make her commit herself, to acknowledge her love for him, before he had shown that their union was practicable. He spoke only out of his heart's abundance; but directly the words had passed his lips he perceived that such an interpretation was possible. 'I am not come to trouble you, Nelly,' he went on