he might have knocked her down quietly, and been free of the obstruction; but women take a shabby advantage of the fact that that they cannot be knocked down. As he stood thus with all his eloquence stopped on his lips, Pamela, from across the bulky person of her champion, stretched out her little hand to him and interposed.

"Hush," she said; "we were saying good-bye to each other, Mrs Swayne. I told mamma we should say good-bye. Hush, oh hush, she doesn't understand; but what does that matter? we must say good-bye all the same."

I shall never say good-bye," said Jack; "you ought to know me better than that. If you must go home with this woman, go-I am not going to fight with her. It matters nothing about her understanding; but, Pamela, remember it is not good-bye. It shall never be good-bye

"Understand!" said Mrs Swayne, whose indignation was furious; " and why shouldn't I understand? Thank Providence, I'm one as knows what temptation is. Go along with you home, Mr John; and she'll just go with this woman, she shall. Woman, indeed! And I don't deny as I'm a woman—and so was your own mother for all so fine as you are. Don't you think as you'll lay your clutches on this poor lamb, as long as Swayne and me's to the fore.

I mayn't understand, and I may be a woman, but
Miss Pamela, you'll just come along home."

"Yes, yes," said Pamela; and then she held up her hand to him entreatingly. "Don't mind what she says don't be angry with me; and I will never, never forget what you have said-and-good-bye," said the girl, steadily, holding out her hand to him with a wonderful glistening smile that shone through two big tears.

As for Jack, he took her hand and gave it an angry loving grasp which hurt it, and then threw it away. "I am going to see your mother," he said, deigning no other reply. And then he turned his back on her without another word, and left her standing in the twilight in the middle of the dusty road, and went away. He left the two women standing amazed, and went off with quick determined steps that far outstripped their capabilities. It was the road to the cottage-the road to Brownlows the road anywhere or everywhere. 'He's a-going home, and a blessed riddance," said Mrs Swayne, though her spirit quaked within her. But Pamela said nothing; he was not going home. The girl stood and watched his quick firm steps and worshipped him in her heart. To her mother! And was there anything but one thing that her mother could say?

CHAPTER XXIII.

ALL FOR LOVE.

IT was almost dark when Jack reached Swayne's Cottages, and there was no light in Mrs Preston's window to indicate her presence. The only bit of illumination there was in the dim dewy twilight road, was a gleam from old Betty's perennial fire, which shone out as she opened the door to watch the passage of the dogcart just then returning from Ridley, where it ought to have carried Mr John to dinner. The dogcart was just returning home, in an innocent, unconscious way; but how much had happened in the interval! the thought made Jack's head whirl a little, and made him half-smile; only half-smile-for such a momentous crisis is not amusing. He had not had time to think whether or not he was rapturously happy, as a young lover ought to be on the whole, it was a very serious business. There were a thousand things to think of,

such as take the laughter out of a man; yet he did smile as it occurred to him in what an ordinary commonplace sort of way the dogcart and the mare and the groom had been jogging back along the dusty roads, while he had been so weightily engaged; and how all those people had been calmly dining at Ridley-were dining now, no doubt-and mentally criticising the dishes, and making feeble dinner table-talk, while he had been settling his fate; in less time than they could have got half through their dinner-in less time than even the bay mare could devour the way between the two houses! Jack felt slightly giddy as he thought of it, and his face grew serious again under his smile. The cottage door stood innocently open; there was nobody and nothing between him and his business; he had not even to knock, to be opened to by a curious indifferent servant, as would have been the case in another kind of house. The little passage was quite dark, but there was another gleam of firelight from the kitchen, where Mr Swayne sat patient with his rheumatism, and even Mrs Preston's door was ajar. Out of the soft darkness without, into the closer darkness within, Jack stepped with a beating heart. This was not the pleasant part of it; this was not like the sudden delight of meeting Pamela -the sudden passion of laying hold on her and

claiming her as his own. He stopped in the dark passage, where he had scarcely room to turn, and drew breath a little. He felt within himself that if Mrs Preston in her black cap and her black gown fell into his arms and saluted him as her son, that he would not be so deeply gratified as perhaps he ought to have been. Pamela was one thing, but her mother was quite another. If mothers, and fathers too for that matter, could but be done away with when their daughters are old enough to marry, what a great deal of trouble it would spare in this world! But that was not to be thought of. He had come to do it, and it had to be done. While he stood taking breath and collecting himself, Mr Swayne, feeling that the step which had crossed his threshold was not his wife's step, called out to the intruder. 'Who are you?" cried the master of the house; "you wait till my missis comes and finds you there; she don't hold with no tramps; and I see her a-coming round the corner," he continued, in tones in which exultation had triumphed over fright. No tramp could have been more moved by the words than was Jack. He resisted the passing impulse he had to stride into the kitchen and strangle Mr Swayne in passing; and then, with one knock by way of preface, he went in without further introduction into the parlour where Mrs Preston was alone.