arms--bright tears shone in her eyes.

"You can't--you can't belong to that--when we are married?"

"To the Third Order? But, dear!--there is nothing in it that conflicts
with married life! It was devised specially for persons living in the
world. You would not have me give up what has been my help and salvation
for ten years?"

He spoke with great emotion. She trembled and hid her face against him.

"Oh! I could not bear it!" she said. "Can't you realise how it would
divide us? I should feel outside--a pariah. As it is, I seem to have
nothing to do with half your life--there is a shut door between me and
it."

A flash of natural, of wholly irresistible feeling passed through him. He
stooped and kissed her hair.

"Open the door and come in!" he said in a whisper that seemed to rise
from his inmost soul.

She shook her head. They were both silent. The deep shade of the
"wilderness" trees closed them in. There was a gentle melancholy in the
autumn morning. The first leaves were dropping on the cobwebbed grass;
and the clouds were low upon the fells.

Presently Laura raised herself. "Promise me you will never press me," she
said passionately; "don't send anyone to me."