844
WYLDER'S HAJVD.
"Secret — yes — but no secret in the evil sense — a
secret only awaiting the evidence which I daily expect,
and then to be stated fully and frankly to you, my only
darling, and as completely blown to the winds."
Dorcas looked in his strange face with her proud, sad
gaze, like one guessing at a funereal allegory.
He kissed her cheek again, placing one arm round her
slender waist, and with his other hand taking hers.
"Yes, Dorcas, my beloved, my only darling, you will
yet know all it has cost me to retain from you even this
folly; and when you have heard all — you will thank me
for having braved your momentary displeasure, to spare
you a great deal of useless and miserable suspense. I
trust you, Dorcas, in everything implicitly. Why won't
you credit what I say?"
"I don't urge you — I never have — to reveal that
which you describe so strangely as a concealment, yet no
secret; as an absurdity, and vet fraught with miserable
suspense."
"Ah, Dorcas, why wiM you misconstrue me? I long
to tell you this, which, after all, is an utter absurdity, a
thousand times more than you can desire to hear it; but
my doing so now, unfortified by the evidence I shall have
in a very few days, would be attended with a danger
which you will then understand. Won't you trust me?"
"And now for my advice," said Dorcas, smiling down
in her mysterious way upon a crimson exotic near her feet.
"Yes, darling, thank you. In sober earnest, your ad-
vice," answered Lake; "and you must advise me. Sev-
eral of our neighbors — the Hillyards, the Ledwiches, the
Wyndermeres, and ever so many more — have spoken to
me very strongly about contesting the county, on the old
Whig principles, at the election which is now imminent.
Now, you know what even moderate success in the House,