"I pity her for having to live," said Emilia.

And so their duett dropped to a finish. He liked her phrase better than
his own, and being denied any privileges, and feeling stupefied by a
position which both enticed and stung him, he remarked that he presumed
he must not detain her any longer; whereupon she gave him her hand. He
clutched the ready hand reproachfully.

"Good-bye," said she.

"You are the first to say it," he complained.

"Will you write to that Austrian colonel, your cousin, to say "Never!
never!" to-morrow, Wilfrid?"

"While you are in England, I shall stay, be sure of that."

She bade him give her love to all Brookfield.

"Once you had none to give but what I let you take back for the purpose!"
he said. "Farewell! I shall see the harp to-night. It stands in the
old place. I will not have it moved or touched till you--"

"Ah! how kind you were, Wilfrid!"

"And how lovely you are!"

There was no struggle to preserve the backs of her fingers from his lips,
and, as this time his phrase was not palpably obscured by the one it