"Dearest, you look awfully pale. I ought not to keep you; and yet I cannot part with you." He drew her to him most tenderly, irresistibly impelled to breathe his adieu on her lips.
"No, no," she exclaimed, drawing back. "I dare not kiss you; a kiss to me would be a marriage bond; do not ask it; do not hold me." He felt how she trembled, and he released her.
"One day, Ella, you will perhaps know how much I must love to obey you. So it must be good-by?"
"Yes; and remember you leave me perfectly free. I say it with no arrogance or want of feeling, but if you do not return, I shall not break my heart. I shall rather rejoice that we have escaped a great mistake—a terrible sorrow—but if you do come back—" A soft blush stole over her cheek—a bright smile. Wilton gazed at her, waiting eagerly for the next words, but they did not come. "Whatever happens," she resumed, "I shall always remember with pleasure, with respect, that for once you rose above the conventional gentleman into a natural, true man." She gave him her hand for a moment, then, drawing it away from his passionate kisses, disappeared in the fast increasing gloom of evening among the plantations.
CHAPTER VIII.
A bright, blustering March morning was shining, with a cold glitter over the square of the well-known B—— Barracks, in that pleasant, rackety capital, Dublin, nearly three months after the interview last recorded. Parade had just been dismissed, and the officers of the second battalion —th Rifles had dispersed to their various occupations or engagements, with the exception of a small group which gathered round an attractive fire in the mess-room, and discussed the military and club gossip of the hour.
"Will you stay for the —th Dragoons' ball, on Thursday, Wilton?" said one of the younger men to our friend, who was reading a London paper, and dressed in mufti, evidently a guest.
"And for St. Paddy's on the 17th?" asked the colonel. "It's a dazzling scene, and no end of fun."