John Temple went up the staircase toward his own room, after quitting the luncheon, saying some very hard things indeed below his breath of Mrs. Layton. She had made him intensely angry about May Churchill and young Henderson. Not that he believed a word of it, but it enraged him to hear the girl’s name coupled with this ruffian’s, for so he mentally designated Henderson.

John indeed had always had serious doubts as to Henderson’s actual guilt regarding Elsie Wray’s death. That he had broken the poor girl’s heart he never doubted. But there had been something in the evidence of the groom, Jack Reid, something in his face that made John believe he was not speaking the truth.

And that Henderson dare go near May! “It’s that disgusting stepmother, I suppose,” thought John; “my poor little girl, my poor May, you will be happier with me.”

So John sat down to write to his poor little May when he got to his own room, and then started out across the park to post his letter at the nearest post office. He walked on with a bent head and a thoughtful brow. He was dissatisfied with himself, irresolute, and yet his heart was warm with love. In his letter he had asked May to fix some place where he could see her, but he was fated to meet her earlier than he expected.

May and her brothers had walked home from church, May feeling somewhat disappointed that she had not had an opportunity of exchanging a word with John Temple, but still she was ready to excuse him.

“He could not help himself; he was obliged to go with his uncle’s wife,” she told herself. But still it made her a little sad. It marked the social difference between them, as it were. If she had been his equal, and John had meant to make her his wife, he would assuredly have lingered to speak to her. As it was he could not help himself, but May sighed when she thought of it.

Then, when they reached home, Mrs. Churchill made herself purposely very unpleasant to her stepdaughter.

“That’s a very absurd hat of yours, May,” she said. “I don’t know what the folks in church would say to it.”

It was in truth a charming hat, though only suited to a lovely face. It became May exceedingly, and she had been conscious of this when she had started in the morning with her brothers; conscious perhaps of it when she saw John Temple’s gray eyes looking upward to the gallery, for she loved to think that she should seem fair in his sight, and now to hear it descried!

“I think it is a very pretty hat,” she answered, somewhat indignantly.

“To go on the stage with, perhaps, but not for a respectable farmer’s daughter to appear at church in,” continued Mrs. Churchill.

May slightly tossed her pretty head, and walked indignantly out of the room. She had no idea of leaving off wearing her new hat, which had just cost her two pounds, on account of her stepmother’s remarks. And immediately the early dinner was over she called to her two young brothers to go out for a walk with her, and wore the picture hat in spite of Mrs. Churchill.

During their afternoon ramble they went along the country lane where May Churchill had first met John Temple in the summer time, when she was gathering wild roses to make a wreath to place on poor young Phil Temple’s grave. It was autumn now, and the cobwebs on the grass and the chill in the breeze told of the shortening days. The wild roses were gone, and the meadow-sweet scented the air no longer, but there was a serene and sober beauty in the changing leaves, in the creeping brambles growing amid the hedge-rows. And quite suddenly the three young people encountered John Temple in this very lane. John had been thinking, also, of that first meeting when he had sat on the stile, and thought, smilingly, that this rural scene only wanted “a pretty milkmaid” to complete the picture. He remembered May as he had seen her thus, so fresh, so fair, in her white frock and her dainty basket of roses. And now with glad surprise he once more encountered her.

They smiled and clasped each other’s hands, but said very few words, and then John looked at the two boys.

“So these two young gentlemen are your brothers, I suppose?” he asked.

“Yes,” answered May, while Willie and Hal grinned responsively.

“I am so glad to have met you,” continued John, looking extremely happy to have done so, “as I was just going to post—” and then he paused and looked again at the boys.

Upon this Hal, who was the youngest, though the sharpest of the two, administered a sharp kick at his brother’s ankle.

“I say, Will,” he said, “I saw some awful jolly blackberries at the other side of the hedge; let’s go in for some?”

Will took the hint, and the two boys ran together to the stile, so as to get to the other side of the hedge, and John Temple and May were alone.

“I was on my way to post a letter to you, May,” John said; “now I will give it to you—here it is.”

He drew out his letter, and put it into May’s hand as he spoke, but he still held her hand fast.

“It is to ask you to meet me, May,” he said. “To meet me, and tell me what your answer to my last letter is to be.”

May’s face flushed, and her breath came sharp; she remembered John’s last letter only too well.

“We can not talk of it to-day,” continued John; “we must be alone. In my letter to you to-day I asked you to fix some time and name place, on Tuesday, as I thought you would only get my letter to-morrow morning. But now as you, have got it to-day, can we meet to-morrow?”

“Yes,” half-whispered May; John was still holding her hand, still looking in her face, and May’s heart was beating very fast.

“I have heard something about you to-day, May,” presently said John; “something that made me very angry—only I did not believe it.”

“And what have you heard?” asked May, raising her beautiful eyes to his.

“That you are flirting—yes, that was the horrid word—flirting with that brute, young Henderson.”

May’s fair face flushed angrily.

“What a dreadful untruth!” she cried, indignantly; “I have been so miserable about this; that woman my father has married has taken it into her head that I should marry this dreadful man, and she asks him to the house, and the other day sent him into the garden after me, and he asked me to marry him, and I told him I never should.”

“I should think not,” said John Temple, quietly.

“I detest him, and can not bear to be in the room with him,” went on May; “and Mrs. Churchill has been so rude to me about it, and makes my home and my life quite miserable. My father seems to believe everything she says, and when I got angry and said she was no mother of mine, he took her part, and said if I did not choose to treat her with proper respect, that I should not remain in his house.”

John smiled.

“And what did you say?” he asked.

“I said, ‘Very well, father; I will go.’”

“Brave little girl! And do you mean to say that your father—actually your father!—could contemplate giving you to that brute Henderson?”

“Oh, his wife can persuade him to do anything, and she has persuaded him that Mr. Henderson would be a very good match for me. It’s too disgusting,” continued May, her fair face flushing and her eyes sparkling, “and I told them both that my own mother would never have allowed such a person to come near me.”

“He shall never come near you, my dear child.”

“And he threatened—oh, don’t go near him or speak to him, Mr. Temple.”

“Did he threaten me?” asked John, disdainfully.

“He said some folly or other—he is horrid. He looks like a murderer, if he isn’t one.”

“I have a very great idea that he is one.”

“At all events he behaved shamefully to that poor girl, and yet my father’s wife praises him, and makes up to him in every way.”

“Let us forget that charming lady for awhile. What time can you meet me to-morrow, May, and where?”

“I heard my father’s wife say she was going somewhere to-morrow afternoon with my father, so I can come any time.”

“Come here at three o’clock, then, my dear little girl.”

John Temple spoke very tenderly, and felt very tenderly to the fair young girl by his side. He took both her hands in his; he smilingly admired the offending hat.

“So this is the new picture hat, is it?” he said. “By Mrs. Layton’s account, May, you are going straight on the road to perdition for wearing it.”

“And my father’s wife found fault with it, too,” answered May, smiling. “What do you think of it?”

“I think it charming; only the face beneath it is so much more charming that I can not admire it long.”

“How you are flattering me!”

At this moment Hal Churchill’s rosy face appeared above from the other side of the hedge, and though it did not remain long, his observations induced him to remark to his brother Willie:

“I say, Willie, I believe those two are spoons.”

“What makes you say that?” asked Will.

“He’s holding her hands, and going on, anyhow. Blessed good thing it would be if they are, as then May would marry the young squire, and we would get no end of tips, and get out of the way sometimes for a bit of that awful woman at home.”

“She’s disgusting,” answered Will, emphatically.

“Beastly,” said the younger brother, equally emphatically; and then the two boys re-crossed the stile, and May and John Temple seeing this, advanced to meet them.

“Have you got lots of blackberries?” asked John.

“Barely ripe,” replied Hal, amiably, to his proposed brother-in-law. “Have a few?”

He opened his stained cotton pocket handkerchief as he spoke, and offered the luxuries it contained to John, who, however, shook his head.

“I am too old to eat blackberries,” he said, with a smile; “I wish I were not.”

“Not do you any harm,” hospitably pressed Hal; “here’s a good ’un.”

Again John shook his head, with a little laugh.

“When I was a boy,” he said, “I adored blackberries and tips,” and he put his hand into his pocket and drew out two golden coins.

Hal grinned from ear to ear.

“Buy what you like with it,” continued John, pressing a sovereign into Hal’s somewhat dirty little hand.

“Oh, thank you, sir,” answered Hal, delightedly, but when John presented the other sovereign to Will Churchill, the elder boy drew back.

“No, thank you, sir,” he said, and colored deeply.

“Not take a tip!” laughed John. “Oh, nonsense; come, take it, my lad.”

Will hesitated and looked at May.

“Tell him to take it,” said John, also looking at May.

“As Mr. Temple is so kind, Will, I think you ought to accept his present,” answered May, with a little laugh, and then Will, as though half-unwillingly, took the golden coin.

“I will walk to the end of the lane with you, and then say good-by,” said John, next moment, and so the boys fell behind, and John had time to half-whisper to May as they walked on:

“Do not forget; to-morrow, here, at three o’clock.”

After this they parted, and the three young Churchills returned together to Woodside Farm.

“That’s rather a nice chap,” remarked Hal, patronizingly.

“Yes,” answered May, with embarrassment; “but, boys, don’t mention at home that we met him.”

Hal winked his blue eye.

“Mum’s the word,” he said. “I’ll tell you what, May, he’s a deal better fellow, I am sure, than that surly brute, Henderson.”

May gave no opinion as to the comparative merits of her two admirers. She walked home feeling intensely happy. All her troubles seemed to have melted into air. John Temple loved her; she was to see him to-morrow, and for the present she needed no more than this.

Both at tea and supper Mrs. Churchill noticed the lovely bloom on her stepdaughter’s smooth cheeks, and the glad, bright look in her eyes. She was an observant woman, this, and took an opportunity of inquiring of Hal Churchill during the evening if they had met anyone they knew when they were out walking.

“Not a soul,” answered Master Hal; “we met two pigs, that was all the company.”

“How absurd you are, boy,” said Mrs. Churchill, crossly. She had not been used to children, and their ways worried her. But Hal, with his sovereign in his pocket, and May, with her love in her heart, were both too happy to care about Mrs. Churchill. They were each thinking of their treasures, and all their stepmother’s shafts fell harmless.

May was up betimes the next morning; up to watch the rosy clouds in the west heralding in the day, and the sun rise over the green meadows and the yellow fields of ripening corn. It was a beautiful morning, but would it keep fine, May asked herself anxiously again and again, as she stood there gazing out on the misty blue sky. If it rained it might prevent her stepmother starting on her expedition; it might prevent her own meeting with John Temple.

But up rose the sun in cloudless splendor, and presently its rays fell on May’s bright head; on her sweet, up-turned face, and bare white throat. They fell on no fairer picture in all that bright autumn day! It was something beyond mere earthly beauty that radiated the girl’s face as she stood watching the rising sun. All that was best and noblest within her was stirred, as it were, with a deep wave of strong and unchanging love.

How the rest of that morning passed she scarcely knew. Mrs. Churchill fussed and scolded, but it all fell on deaf ears. May was living in a world of her own, and Mrs. Churchill’s sharp voice could not reach it. Then came the early dinner, and after this was over her father and her stepmother drove away. They were going to Castle Hill, Mrs. Churchill’s own place, and as it was some distance from Woodside, May knew it must be nightfall before their return.

She breathed a soft sigh of relief as she saw them disappear. Then she went up to her own room and moved about restlessly until it was time for her to go to keep her tryst with John Temple. She saw the two lads leave the house also from her window, and so she felt absolutely free.

At half-past two o’clock she started. She walked quickly—perhaps unconsciously—yet when she reached the place of meeting John was already there. He was not sitting on the stile this time, as he had done when they first had met in this country lane. He was walking to and fro, with a bent head and a somewhat anxious brow; but his face brightened when he saw May. He advanced quickly to meet her; he took both her hands.

“I was half afraid you might not be able to come,” he said.

“My father and his wife have gone out for the day,” answered May, “and the boys also are out. I have a whole afternoon to myself.”

“For me?” asked John.

“Yes, all for you,” smiled May.

“My sweetheart!” said John, and he bent down and kissed her. “Now, will you give me your answer—the answer I asked in my letter—is yours the love that can not change?”

She did not speak; she looked at him for a moment, and then nestled her sweet face against his breast.

“Tell me, my dear one,” urged John; “will there be no change in your love?”

Again May looked up, and this time her rosy lips parted.

“Mine is a love that can not change, John,” she murmured below her breath.

“Be it so, then,” said John Temple, almost solemnly, and he looked up to the blue sky as he spoke, and made an inward vow. “Neither will my love change,” he said aloud the next moment; “for weal or woe then, May, our future will be together.”

They did not speak for a short while after this. John drew May closer to his breast, and she leaned there at rest and happy. A great content seemed to overflow her being. She was with John. John had just said they should never part.

Presently John broke the sweet silence that seemed like heaven to the girl’s heart.

“It will not be all smooth sailing, you know, May,” he said.

She looked up inquiringly.

“I mean,” continued John Temple, with a sort of effort, “that our marriage, for a time at least, will have to be a secret one. There are several reasons for this; one is that my uncle would oppose it, and the other that Mrs. Temple has taken a very absurd prejudice against your family on account of the death of her boy.”

“How is that?” asked May, quickly.

“It seems that one or both of your brothers played in the game of football when poor young Phil Temple was killed, and his mother foolishly—for she is a foolish woman—has taken it into her head that one of your brothers gave him the fatal blow on the head. She has had a dream, or some nonsense or other, and she assured me gravely last night that she heard her boy’s voice say distinctly twice in one night, ‘One of the Churchills killed me.’ It’s fancy, no doubt,” continued John Temple, as he saw May’s rosy bloom beginning to fade; “but you see it makes things for us more difficult.”

“Yes, I see,” said May, slowly.

“In fact, my dear one, there is nothing for it but a secret marriage,” went on John, decidedly. “I have thought it all over—what would be best for us both—that is if you truly love me, May?”

“I do, I do!” answered May, with such emotion that her eyes grew misty with unshed tears.

“Then I will tell you my plans. They are that you should leave here at once; go up to town alone. Do not be frightened; a home will be ready for you with two very respectable old ladies, who keep a lodging-house, or rather did, in Bayswater. I lodged with them once when I was much younger, and I was such a favorite of theirs we have always kept up a kind of acquaintance. They have retired from the lodging-house business, but I will write and ask them to receive my young cousin, Miss Churchill, for a short time, and I know they will gladly do so. In a fortnight I will join you, and we will be married from their house, and all the good people here will be none the wiser. Will you consent to this?”

“I will do whatever you wish me,” said May, trustfully, and she put her hand in his.

A slight change passed over John’s face.

“You are not happy at home, May, are you?” he asked.

“I am most unhappy. Mrs. Churchill makes me miserable about that wretched Mr. Henderson.”

“It is all right then; when can you start for town—to-morrow?”

“To-morrow?” repeated May, startled.

“Yes, the sooner the better, for then the sooner I can join you. I will write to the Miss Websters at once, and give you their address—and May, I have brought fifty pounds with me for you.”

“Oh! I can not take that,” answered May, with a sudden blush.

“My dear one, you must! You are my little cousin, you know, until you are my wife, and my little cousin must pay her way. Here it is, May, and do not be foolish. Now what train will you start by to-morrow? I can not, I am afraid, see you off on account of the confounded gossip it would cause.”

“Oh, no, you must not do that. I will go in what train I can get quickly away by—and you will join me, John?” she added, wistfully.

“I swear it,” said John Temple, earnestly, “and I will write to you. But be cautious, dear May, for both our sakes. This is the Websters’ address. Drive straight from the station to their house.”

“Yes—and John, oh, John!—you do not repent liking me—you do care for me?”

“I care for you with all my heart and soul, May! I love you as deeply as a man can love a woman; do not, at least, doubt my love.”

He took her in his arms and kissed her again and again, and with tenderest words of affection at length they parted; May returning at once to Woodside to make her preparations for leaving it, and John Temple going back to the Hall.

On her road home May determined what to do. She would take her young brother Hal partly into her confidence, and tell him she was about to run away from home on account of her stepmother’s treatment. But when she arrived at the farm she found that a letter from her father awaited her, which had been sent by hand. This letter informed her that on account of the length of the drive to and from Castle Hill, that he and his wife had determined to remain there all night, but would return on the following afternoon or evening.

This made everything much easier for May. She said nothing to Hal that night, but packed up her small belongings ready for an early start in the morning. Then when the boys had gone to bed she went to her own room, and stood there looking wistfully around. She had slept here in her childhood; she had slept here in her blooming young maidenhood, and she knew that after the night was past she would sleep here no more. She was going to take a leap in the dark; a leap into the unknown, but there was no fear in her heart, for “perfect love casteth out fear.”

She knelt down before she went to bed, and prayed for John Temple; prayed that there should be no change in their love in all their future lives.