"I have quite enjoyed the part we have taken in this romantic little affair—eh, Wilson?"
"Ra—ther!" he replied.
"But don't forget it is to be a dead secret," said Ellis, as he left the door.
"Oh! honour bright!"
At two o'clock punctually Cardo and his father seated themselves in the light gig, which was the only carriage the Vicar affected, and when Betto had bid him a tearful good-bye, with all the farm-servants bobbing in the background, Gwynne Ellis, grasping his hand with a warm pressure, said:
"Good-bye, Wynne, and God bless you! I shall look forward with great pleasure to meeting you again when you return from Australia. I shall stay here a week or two at your father's invitation."
"Yes," said the Vicar, in a wonderfully softened tone, "it would be too trying to have the house emptied at one blow."
As they drove along the high road together and crossed the little bridge over the Berwen Valley, the Vicar, pointing with his whip, drew Cardo's attention to the stile beside the bridge.
"This is the stile which I saw Ellen Vaughan crossing the day I met your mother waiting for her. I met my brother afterwards, and oh! how blinded I was! But there, a man who is carried away by his passions is like a runaway horse, which, they say, becomes blind in the eagerness of his flight."
It was needless to call Cardo's attention to the stile. His first meeting with Valmai was so intimately connected with it; and as he crossed the bridge, he called to mind how they had shared their gingerbread under the light of the moon.