have him with me."

 

"I don't like the idea of your going, Harry," she said tearfully.  "No,

dear; and if I had the chance of seeing you sometimes, and of some day

obtaining your father's consent to the marriage, all the gold mines in

Peru would offer no temptation to me. As it is, I can see nothing else for

it. In some respects it is better; if I were to stay here I should only be

meeting you frequently at dances and dinners, never able to talk to you

privately, and feeling always that you could never be mine. It would be a

constant torture. Here is a possibility--a very remote one, I admit, but

still a possibility--and even if it fails I shall have the satisfaction of

knowing that I have done all that a man could do to win you."

 

"I think it is best that you should go somewhere, Harry, but Peru seems to

be a horrible place."  "Barnett speaks of it in high terms. You know he

was four or five years out there. He describes the people as being

delightful, and he has nothing to say against the climate."

 

"I will not try to dissuade you," she said bravely after a pause. "At

present I am hopeless, but I shall have something to hope and pray for

while you are away. We will say good-bye now, dear. I have come to meet

you this once, but I will not do so again, another meeting would but give

us fresh pain. I am very glad to know that your brother is going with you.

I shall not have to imagine that you are ill in some out-of-the-way place

without a friend near you; and in spite of the dangers you may have to

run, I would rather think of you as bravely doing your best than eating

your heart out here in London. I shall not tell my father that we have met

here; you had better write to him and say that you are leaving London at

once, and that you hope in two years to return and claim me in accordance

with his promise. I am sure he will be glad to know that you have gone,

and that we shall not be constantly meeting. He will be kinder to me than

he has been of late, for as he will think it quite impossible that you can

make a fortune in two years he will be inclined to dismiss you altogether

from his mind."

 

For another half-hour they talked together, and then they parted with

renewed protestations on her part that nothing should induce her to break

her promise to wait for him for two years. He had given her the address of

one of the merchants to whom Mr. Barnett had promised him a letter of

introduction, so that she might from time to time write, for the voyage

would take at least four months and as much more would be required for his

first letter to come back. He walked moodily home after parting with her.

 

"Hullo, Harry! nothing wrong with you, I hope? why, you look as grave as

an owl."