several to be passed before they reached Luckreth, where they always stopped and left the boat. At all times she was so liable to fits of absence, that she was likely enough to let her way-marks pass unnoticed.

But at last Stephen, who had been rowing more and more idly, ceased to row, laid down the oars, folded his arms, and looked down on the water as if watching the pace at which the boat glided without his help. This sudden change roused Maggie. She looked at the far-stretching fields - at the banks close by - and felt that they were entirely strange to her. A terrible alarm took possession of her.

`O, have we passed Luckreth - where we were to stop?' she exclaimed, looking back, to see if the place were out of sight. No village was to be seen. She turned round again, with a look of distressed questioning at Stephen.

He went on watching the water, and said, in a strange, dreamy, absence tone, `Yes - a long way.'

`O what shall I do?' cried Maggie, in an agony. `We shall not get home for hours - and Lucy - O God, help me!'

She clasped her hands and broke into a sob, like a frightened child: she thought of nothing but of meeting Lucy, and seeing her look of pained surprise and doubt - perhaps of just upbraiding.

Stephen moved and sat beside her and gently drew down the clasped hands.

`Maggie,' he said, in a deep tone of slow decision, `let us never go home again - till no one can part us - till we are married.'

The unusual tone, the startling words, arrested Maggie's sob, and she sat quite still - wondering: as if Stephen might have seen some possibilities that would alter everything, and annual the wretched facts.

`See, Maggie, how everything has come without our seeking - in spite of all our efforts. We never thought of being alone together again - it has all been done by others. See how the tide is carrying us out - away from all those unnatural bonds that we have been trying to make faster round us - and trying in vain. It will carry us on to Torby, and we can land there, and get some carriage, and hurry on to York, and then to Scotland - and never pause a moment till we are bound to each other so that only death can part us. It is the only right thing - dearest - it is the only way of escaping from this wretched entanglement. Everything has concurred to point it out to us. We have contrived nothing, we have thought of nothing ourselves.'

Stephen spoke with deep, earnest pleading. Maggie listened - passing from her startled wonderment to the yearning after that belief that the tide was doing it all - that she might glide along with the swift, silent stream and not struggle any more. But across that stealing influence came the terrible shadow of past thoughts; and the sudden horror lest now at last the moment of fatal intoxication was close upon her, called up a feeling of angry resistance towards Stephen.

`Let me go!' she said, in an agitated tone, flashing an indignant look at him, and trying to get her hands free. `You have wanted to deprive me of any choice. You knew we were come too far - you have dared to take advantage of my thoughtlessness. It is unmanly to bring me into such a position.'

Stung at this reproach, he released her hands, moved back to his former place, and folded his arms, in a sort of desperation at the difficulty Maggie's words had made present to him. If she would not consent to go on, he must curse himself for the embarrassment he had led her into. But the reproach was the unendurable thing: the one thing worse than parting with her was, that she should feel he had acted unworthily towards her. At last he said, in a tone of suppressed rage,

`I didn't notice that we had passed Luckreth, till we had got to the next village - and then it came into my mind that we would go on. I can't justify it - I ought to have told you. It is enough to make you hate me -