Rachel was so pale that her very lips were white as she spoke this in a melancholy but very firm way.
'Oh, Rachel, it is a great blow—maybe if you thought it over!—I'll wait any time.'
'No, Lord Chelford, I'm quite unworthy of your preference; but time cannot change me—and I am speaking, not from impulse, but conviction. This is our secret—yours and mine—and we'll forget it; and I could not bear to lose your friendship—you'll be my friend still—won't you? Good-bye.'
'God bless you, Rachel!' And he hurriedly kissed the hand she had placed in his, and without a word more, or looking back, he walked swiftly down the wooded road towards Gylingden.
So, then, it had come and gone—gone for ever.
'Margery, bring the basket in; I think a shower is coming.'
And she picked up her trowel and other implements, and placed them in the porch, and glanced up towards the clouds, as if she saw them, and had nothing to think of but her gardening and the weather, and as if her heart was not breaking.
CHAPTER LIII.
THE VICAR'S COMPLICATIONS, WHICH LIVELY PEOPLE HAD BETTER NOT READ.
William Wylder's reversion was very tempting. But Lawyer Larkin knew the value of the precious metals, and waited for more data. The more he thought over his foreign correspondence, and his interview with Lake, the more steadily returned upon his mind the old conviction that the gallant captain was deep in the secret, whatever it might be.