“Do you mean that you are going to leave Mount Hope?” she asked slowly.

“Yes, to-night maybe.”

Her glance no longer met his, but he was conscious that she had lost something of her serenity.

“Are you sorry, Elizabeth?” he ventured.

To pass mutely out of her life had suddenly seemed an impossibility, and his tenderness and yearning trembled in his voice.  She answered obliquely, by asking: 

“Must you go?”

“I want to get away from Mount Hope.  I want to leave it all,—­all but you, dear!” he said.  “You haven’t answered me, Elizabeth; will you care?”

“I am sorry,” she said slowly, and the light in her gray-blue eyes darkened.

She heard the sigh that wasted itself on his lips.

“I am glad you can say that,—­I wish you would look up!” he said wistfully.

“Are you going to-night?” she questioned.

“Yes, but I am coming back.  I shan’t find that you have forgotten me when I come, shall I, Elizabeth?”

She looked up quickly into his troubled face, and it was not the warm firelight that brought the rich color in a sudden flame to her cheeks.

“I shall not forget you.”

There was a determined gentleness in her speech and manner that gave him courage.

“I haven’t any right to talk to you in this way; I know I haven’t, but—­Oh, I want you, Elizabeth!” And all at once he was on his knees beside her, his arms about her.  “Don’t forget me, dear!  I love you, I Love you—­I want you—­Oh, I want you for my wife!”

The girl looked into the passionate face upturned to hers, and then her head drooped.  And so they remained long; his dark head resting in her arms; her fair face against it.

“Why do you go, John?” she asked at length, out of the rich content of their silence.

“I haven’t any choice, dear heart; there isn’t any place for me here.  I have thought it all over, and I know I am doing the wise thing,—­I am quite sure of this!  I shall write you of everything that concerns me!” he added hastily, as he heard the tread of the general’s slippered feet in the hall.

North released her hands as the general entered the room.  Elizabeth sank back in her chair.  Her father glanced sharply at them, and North turned toward him frankly.

“I am leaving on the midnight train, General, and I must say good-by; I have to get a few things together for my trip!”

General Herbert glanced again at Elizabeth, but her face was averted and he learned nothing from its expression.

“So you are going away!  Well, North, I hope you will have a pleasant trip,—­better let me send you into town?”

And he reached for the bell-rope.  North shook his head.

“I’ll walk, thank you,” he said briefly.

In silence he turned to Elizabeth and held out his hand.  For an instant she rested hers in it, a cold little hand that trembled; their eyes met in a brief glance of perfect understanding, and then North turned from her.  The general followed him into the hall.