"Sir, I beseech you—" cried Jocelyn.
But he was cut short by the Puritan, who, turning from him contemptuously, said to his daughter—"Let him depart immediately."
Aveline signed to the young man to go; but finding him remain motionless, she took him by the hand, and led him some way along the terrace. Then, releasing her hold, she bade him farewell!
"Wherefore have you done this?" inquired Jocelyn reproachfully.
"Question me not; but be satisfied I have acted for the best," she replied. "O Jocelyn!" she continued anxiously, "if an opportunity should occur to you of serving my father, do not neglect it."
"Be assured I will not," the young man replied. "Shall we not meet again?" he asked, in a tone of deepest anxiety.
"Perhaps," she answered. "But you must go. My father will become impatient. Again farewell!"
On this they separated: the young man sorrowfully departing, while her footsteps retreated in the opposite direction.
Meanwhile the May games went forward on the green with increased spirit and merriment, and without the slightest hinderance. More than once the mummers had wheeled their mazy rounds, with Gillian and Dick Taverner footing it merrily in the midst of them. More than once the audacious 'prentice, now become desperately enamoured of his pretty partner, had ventured to steal a kiss from her lips. More than once he had whispered words of love in her ear; though, as yet, he had obtained no tender response. Once—and once only—had he taken her hand; but then he had never quitted it afterwards. In vain other swains claimed her for a dance. Dick refused to surrender his prize. They breakfasted together in a little bower made of green boughs, the most delightful and lover-like retreat imaginable. Dick's appetite, furious an hour ago, was now clean gone. He could eat nothing. He subsisted on love alone. But as she was prevailed upon to sip from a foaming tankard of Whitsun ale, he quaffed the remainder of the liquid with rapture. This done, they resumed their merry sports, and began to dance, again. The bells continued to ring blithely, the assemblage to shout, and the minstrels to play. A strange contrast to what was passing in the Puritan's garden.