“Is there something you wish to say?”

“Not I,” she responded with emphasis on the pronoun.

“Then is it something you wish me to say?”

She nodded her head slowly:  “Yes.”

“What is it?  Tell me and I will say it.”

She shook her head slowly:  “No.”

“What is it?  I cannot guess.”

“Did you not like to hear me say that—­that I—­loved you?”

“Ah, yes; you know it.  But—­oh!—­do you wish to hear me say it?”

The head nodded rapidly two or three times:  “Yes.”  And the black curving lashes were lifted for a fleeting, luminous instant.

“It is surely not necessary; you have known it so long already, but I am only too glad to say it.  I love you.”

She nestled closer to him and hid her face on his breast.

“Now that I have said it, what is my reward?” he asked—­and the fair face came up, red and rosy, with “rewards,” any one of which was worth a king’s ransom.

“But this is worse than insanity,” cried Brandon, as he almost pushed her from him.  “We can never belong to each other; never.”

“No,” said Mary, with a despairing shake of the head, as the tears began to flow again; “no! never.”  And falling upon his knees, he caught both her hands in his, sprang to his feet and ran from the room.

Her words showed him the chasm anew.  She saw the distance between them even better than he.  Evidently it seemed farther looking down than looking up.  There was nothing left now but flight.

He sought refuge in his own apartments and wildly walked the floor, exclaiming, “Fool! fool that I am to lay up this store of agony to last me all my days.  Why did I ever come to this court?  God pity me—­pity me!” And he fell upon his knees at the bed, burying his face in his arms, his mighty man’s frame shaking as with a palsy.

That same night Brandon told me how he had committed suicide, as he put it, and of his intention to go to Bristol and there await the sailing of the ship, and perhaps find a partial resurrection in New Spain.

Unfortunately, he could not start for Bristol at once, as he had given some challenges for a tournament at Richmond, and could furnish no good excuse to withdraw them; but he would not leave his room, nor again see “that girl who was driving him mad.”

It was better, he thought, and wisely too, that there be no leave-taking, but that he should go without meeting her.

“If I see her again,” he said, “I shall have to kill some one, even if it is only myself.”

I heard him tossing in his bed all night, and when morning came he arose looking haggard enough, but with his determination to run away and see Mary no more, stronger than ever upon him.

But providence, or fate, or some one, ordered it differently, and there was plenty of trouble ahead.

CHAPTER VIII

The Trouble in Billingsgate Ward