But before the new piece is produced I shall have left London, and shall not have the pleasure of accompanying you to the theatre." "You are going to leave London ?" "Yes, to-morrow." "So soon!" cried Charlotte, with undisguised regret; "and for a long time, I suppose ?" she added, very mournfully.
Miss Paget gave a little start, and a feverish flush lit up her face for one brief moment.
"I am glad he is going," she thought; "I am very glad he is going." "Yes," said Valentine, in reply to Charlotte's inquiry, "I am likely to be away for a considerable time; indeed my plans are at present so vague, that I cannot tell when I may come back to town." He could not resist the temptation to speak of his absence as if it were likely to be the affair of a lifetime.

He could not refrain from the delight of sounding the pure depths of that innocent young heart.
But when the tender gray eyes looked at him, so sweet in their sudden sadness, his heart melted, and he could trifle with her unconscious love no longer.
"I am going away on a matter of business," he said, "which may or may not occupy some time; but I don't suppose I shall be many weeks away from London." Charlotte gave a little sigh of relief.
"And are you going very far ?" she asked.
"Some distance; yes--a--hundred and fifty miles or so," Valentine answered very lamely.

It had been an easy thing to invent an ancient aunt Sarah for the mystification of the astute Horatio; but Valentine Hawkehurst could not bring himself to tell Charlotte Halliday a deliberate falsehood.

The girl looked at him wonderingly, as he gave that hesitating answer to her question.

She was at a loss to understand why he did not tell her the place to which he was going, and the nature of the business that took him away.
She was very sorry that he was going to disappear out of her life for a time so uncertain, that while on the one hand it might be only a few weeks, it might on the other hand be for ever.