THE SMUGGLER. 287 



" She said she would do anything," he murmured ; " her words 

 were, * I will. 3 It is surely a consent." 



He forgot, he heeded not, he would not heed, that she had 

 added, " but" 



" Yes, it was a consent," he repeated; " it must have been 

 a consent, I will hasten to tell him. If we can but gain a 

 few days, it is something. Who can say what a few days 

 may bring? At all events, it is a relief. It will obtain the 

 delay she wished; I will tell him. It must have been a con- 

 sent;" and calling the servants and Edith's own maid to 

 attend upon her, he hastened out of the house, fearful of 

 waiting till her senses returned, lest other words should snatch 

 from him the interpretation he chose to put upon those which 

 had gone before. In an instant, however, he returned, went 

 into the library, and wrote down on a scrap of paper : 



" Thanks, dearest Edith, thanks I I go in haste to tell 

 Mr. Radford the promise you have given.'' 



Then hurrying out again, he put the paper, which he had 

 folded up, into the hands of the groom who held his horse. 

 " That for Miss Croyland," he said, " when she has quite re- 

 covered ; but not before ;" and, mounting with speed, he rode 

 away as fast as he could go. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



IT was two o'clock when Sir Robert Croyland left his daughter; 

 and Edith, with the aid of her maid, soon recovered from the 

 swoon into which she had fallen. At first she hardly knew 

 where she was, or what had taken place. All seemed strange 

 to her, for she had never fainted before ; and though she had 

 more than once seen her sister in the state in which she her- 

 self had just been, yet she did not apply what she had wit- 

 nessed in others to explain her own sensations. 



When she could rise from the sofa, where her father had 

 laid her, and thought and recollection returned, Edith's first 

 inquiry was for Sir Robert, and the servant's answer that he 

 had been gone a quarter of an hour, was at first a relief. But 

 Edith sat and pondered for a while, applying herself to call to 



