There is nothing to be done but to part. We are no longer alone. Good-by, Ulfar!—dear Ulfar!”

“I care not who is present. You are my wife.” And he clasped her in his arms and kissed her.

Perhaps she was not sorry. Perhaps her own glance of love and longing had commanded the embrace; for when she released herself she was weeping, and Ulfar’s tears were on her cheeks. But she called the vicar’s maid imperatively, and so put an end to the interview.

“That was my husband, Lottie,” she 147 said. It was the only explanation offered. Aspatria knew it was useless to expect any reticence on the subject. In that isolated valley such a piece of news could not be kept; the very birds would talk about it in their nests. She must herself tell Will, and although she had done nothing wrong, she was afraid to tell him.

147

When she reached home she was glad to hear that Will had been sent for to Squire Frostham’s. “It was something about a fox,” said Brune. “They wanted me too, but Alice Frostham is a girl I cannot abide. I would not go near her.”

“Brune, will you take a long ride for my sake?”

“I will do anything for you I can.”

“I met Ulfar Fenwick this morning.”

“Then you did a bad thing. I would not have believed it of you. Good Lord! there is as much two-facedness in a woman as there is meat in an egg.”

“Brune, you are thinking wrong. I did not know he was in the country till he stood before me; and he did not move 148 me a hair’s-breadth any way. But Lottie from the vicarage saw us together; and she was going to Dalton. You know what she will say; and by and by the Frosthams will hear; and then they will feel it to be ‘only kind’ to talk to Will about me and my affairs; and the end of it will be some foolish deed or other. If you love me, Brune, go to Redware to-night, and see Lady Redware, and tell her there is danger for her brother if he stays around here.”

148

“I can say that truly. There is danger for the scoundrel, a good deal of it.”

“Brune, it would be such a sorrow to me if every one were talking of me again. Do what I ask you, Brune. You promised to stand by me through thick and thin.”

“I did; and I will go to Redware as 

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