"It must then be considered as settled?" he repeated.

"Yes, Will, yes. Pray consider it as settled." He then sat down on the rock again, and she came and sat by him,—near to him, but not close as she had been before. She turned her eyes upon him, gazing on him, but did not speak to him; and he sat also without speaking for a while, with his eyes fixed upon the ground. "I suppose we may go back to the house?" he said at last.

"Give me your hand, Will, and tell me that you will still love me—as your sister."

He gave her his hand. "If you ever want a brother's care you shall have it from me," he said.

"But not a brother's love?"

"No. How can the two go together? I shan't cease to love you because my love is in vain. Instead of making me happy it will make me wretched. That will be the only difference."

"I would give my life to make you happy, if that were possible."

"You will not give me your life in the way that I would have it." After that they walked in silence back to the house, and when he had opened the front door for her, he parted from her and stood alone under the porch, thinking of his misfortune.

CHAPTER VI.

SAFE AGAINST LOVE-MAKING ONCE AGAIN.

For a considerable time Belton stood under the porch of the house, thinking of what had happened to him, and endeavouring to steady himself under the blow which he had received. I do not know that he had been sanguine of success. Probably he had made to himself no assurances on the subject. But he was a man to whom failure, of itself, was intolerable. In any other event of life he would have told himself that he would not fail—that he would persevere and conquer. He could imagine no other position as to which he could at once have been assured of failure, in any project on which he had set his heart. But as to this project it was so. He had been told that she could not love him—that she could never love him;—and he had believed her. He had made his attempt and had failed; and, as he thought of this, standing under the porch, he became convinced that life for him was altogether changed, and that he who had been so happy must now be a wretched man.

He was still standing there when Mr. Amedroz came down into the hall, dressed for dinner, and saw his figure through the open doors. 

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