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Now that it is all on a turn of the dice, and a moment may decide everything, I may venture to think of myself."

"Dice! What you say is all about gambling, Edward."

"So it is, my sweetest. It is a trick I have got. Chance is everything in business-luck, whatever that may be so that gambling words are the only words that come natural. But don't leave the talking to me; you can talk better than I can; you are not a silent angel. Tell me something, Hester. Tell me what you thought that night. Tell me what this little heart is saying now."

Hester was not touched by that reference to her little heart, which was not a little heart, but a great one, bounding wildly in her breast with perplexity and pain, as well as love, but ready for any heroic effort.

"If I were to tell you perhaps you would not like it, Edward. It makes me happy that you should want me, and lean on me, and give me your burden to bear; but I want so much more. Perhaps I am not so gentle as women ought to be. My mother would be content, but I am not. I want to know everything, to help you to think, to understand it all. And besides, Edward- No, one thing is enough; I will not say that."

"Yes, say everything; it is all sweet from you.”

"Then, Edward, come home and let my mother know. She will betray nobody. We ought not to meet in the dark like two-to send little hidden notes. We are responsible to the people who love us. We ought to be honest-to mamma, to Catherine Vernon."

"We ought to go and hand in the banns, perhaps," he said, with sudden bitterness, "like two-honest shopkeepers, as you say. Catherine Vernon would give me away. And is this all you know of love, Hester? it is the woman's way, I suppose—congratulations, wedding presents, general triumph over everybody. How should you understand me when I speak of disappearing with my love, getting lost, dying even, if it were together-?"

There was a pause, for Hester was wounded, yet touched, both to the heart. She said, after a moment, almost under her breath, "I can understand that too." The faltering of her voice, the droop of her head, and his own need for her, more urgent than either, changed Edward's sarcastic mood. He drew her closer to him, and put down his face close to her ear.

"We must not fight," he said, "my only love. I am going away, and I can't quarrel with you, my only love! And I am your only love. There has never been anybody between us. I will come back in two or three days; but Hester, another time, if it should

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be for good, would you come?-you would come?with me?"

"Elope!" she said, breathless, her eyes large in the darkness, straining upon the face which was too near her own to be very clear.

He laughed. "If you like the word; it is an innocent word. Yes, elope then," he said.

"But why?-but why? It would wound them all -it would break their hearts; and for what reason?" Hester cried.

CHAPTER VII.

ALARMS.

EDWARD was about a week away from home. He had often been away before, and his absence had caused no particular commotion: but now it affected a good many people. To Catherine, if it were possible, it might be said to have been a certain relief. He and she had got over that explanation when she had intended to say so many things to him, and had found the words taken out of her mouth. All things had gone on again in their usual way. But the suspicion which he had supposed to exist so long without any reason now had actually arisen in her mind. She showed it less than he had supposed her to show it when she had no such feeling. She was on her guard. She did not worry him any longer by her old affectionate way of going to the window to watch him when he went out; that had been simple love, admiration of his orderly, regular ways, pleasure in the sight of him: but somehow instinctively since she had begun to doubt she came to perceive the interpretation he had put upon it, and she did it no longer. But at night when all was still in the house and Edward

down stairs at work in his room, or supposed to be at work, if any sound of the door closing echoed upwards, Catherine would steal behind the curtains and watch if it was he who was going out, and which way he took. She believed him, of course; but yet there was always in her soul a wish to ask—was he really, really sure that he was true? Doubts like these are beyond the power of any but the sternest self-command to crush, and Catherine was capable of that in his presence. She would not betray her anxiety to him: but when he was not there no such effort was necessary, and she betrayed it freely, to the silence, to the night, when there was nobody to see.

And her thoughts had travelled fast and far since that evening. She had no longer any doubt that he loved somebody, and she had made up her mind that it was Hester who was the object of his love. This had caused her perhaps the greatest mental conflict she had ever known in her life-for her life had this good thing in it, that it had been wonderfully free from struggle. She had been the arbiter of all things in her little world, and nobody had made any actual stand against her will. Many pretences had surrounded her, feigned assents and furtive oppositions, but nobody had stood out against her. It was a great wonder to her that he or any one should do so now (though he did not: he had opposed her in nothing, nor ever said a word from which it could be inferred that he re

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