'I shall have a splendid house in which to enshrine you when the time comes and I am free,' continued the tempter; 'you, my darling, have known no home but this sequestered one—apart from all the world—a world of which you know nothing.'
'And poor Mary—how can I leave her?'
'Nor need you do so—once we are away and have been made one we shall send for her; it will only be the matter of a post or two. I shall so love and cherish you both,' urged Sleath, half laughing in his mind at the conviction that she would never see Mary again until—well, until he was tired of her. 'Courage, little one, and you will be Lady Sleath—it is a second edition of the miller's lovely daughter.'
'I am not quite so humble as she was,' said Ellinor, making a little moue.
'Nor I so exalted as the "gracious Duncan." To-morrow night, then, dearest Ellinor, at this hour—nine o'clock, I shall await you with a hired carriage at the corner of the lane below Birkwoodbrae, and a short drive will take us to the station, where we shall get the up train for London and the south!'
Ellinor answered only by her tears, and the silently-accorded kiss that gave consent, and went shudderingly back to her home, feeling as if she was hovering on the verge of an abyss.
And she was so in more ways than one!
CHAPTER XV.
HOW FAUST SUCCEEDED.
The day, an eventful one, indeed, to Ellinor—wore on; the 'to-morrow night' of Sir Redmond's arrangements had become 'to-night,' and the hour of nine seemed to be approaching swiftly.