her earnest and imploring voice, "but you forget: the bag is always
brought first to Sir Miles; he will recognize my hand. And to whom can
you trust your own letters?"

"True," replied Lucretia, despondingly; and there was a pause. Suddenly
she lifted her head, and cried: "But your father's house is not far from
this,--not ten miles; we can find a spot at the remote end of the park,
near the path through the great wood: there I can leave my letters; there
I can find yours."

"But it must be seldom. If any of Sir Miles's servants see me, if--"

"Oh, William, William, this is not the language of love!"

"Forgive me,--I think of you!"

"Love thinks of nothing but itself; it is tyrannical, absorbing,--it
forgets even the object loved; it feeds on danger; it strengthens by
obstacles," said Lucretia, tossing her hair from her forehead, and with
an expression of dark and wild power on her brow and in her eyes. "Fear
not for me; I am sufficient guard upon myself. Even while I speak, I
think,--yes, I have thought of the very spot. You remember that hollow
oak at the bottom of the dell, in which Guy St. John, the Cavalier, is
said to have hid himself from Fairfax's soldiers? Every Monday I will
leave a letter in that hollow; every Tuesday you can search for it, and
leave your own. This is but once a week; there is no risk here."

Mainwaring's conscience still smote him, but he had not the strength to
resist the energy of Lucretia. The force of her character seized upon
the weak part of his own,--its gentleness, its fear of inflicting pain,