"You are sure you won't be twenty-one?"

"I'm sure I shan't. Why?"

"Because if you are only nineteen, I cannot carry you off and marry you, love, which would have been the simplest way out of it."

"I should not like that way," whispered Rachel. "It would be a wrong way."

"Yes, dear--except as a last resource. Of course we would try all the other ways first. But we must have our rights, you know. If they won't give them, we must take them--we must get them as we can."

"Cannot we be married until I am twenty-one?" she queried timidly.

"Not without your guardian's consent. Is there any chance of my getting that, or any kind of toleration even, if I call on him at his office to-morrow and use all the eloquence at my command?"

"No. Aunt Elizabeth won't let _him_ have anything to do with it."

"If I call on her, then?"

"Oh, no--not the slightest. In the first place, she won't see you. And if she did--oh, no, you must not try--not yet! I think it would make everything worse than it is already."

"Then you see the alternative?--a separation for perhaps two whole years."

"If I know we are going to be so happy at the end of it----"

"Ah--at the end of it! It will be a fine test for you, Rachel."

"Why for me, any more than for you? Oh, don't talk of tests!" she pleaded; "I only want to feel sure I shall never lose you, and I don't mind waiting two years. If only----"

"If only what?"

"If only Mr. Kingston would go away!"

"Now listen to me," he said gently, but with his grave peremptoriness, "you must not let another day pa.s.s without breaking off with him. You must _send_ him away, Rachel. I am sorry for him, poor devil, but you couldn't do him a worse wrong than let him go on deceiving himself about you."

"Oh, do you think I would do that? Of course I will not. I can do it _now_--now that you have come. For now I shall feel strong, and now I can tell them why. I shall write him a letter before I go to bed, and I shall tell Aunt Elizabeth as soon as I have sent it. But what will they say to me? It will be dreadful."

"Poor little woman! Can't I take the dreadful part of it for you? _I_ shan't mind it."

"You can't. I know it will be better for us both if you will not have anything to do with it just yet."

"I think I _must_ see your uncle, dear, before I go away again."

"Well--if you think it best. But it will do no good with Aunt Elizabeth.

He leaves it all to her."

Mr. Dalrymple gazed thoughtfully at the distant horizon, where little points of yellow twinkled in the silvery obscurity of the moonshiny bay.

He was deeply troubled and perplexed about this tender little creature, and the idea of leaving her to bear the brunt of unknown trials for his sake, seemed too preposterous to be taken seriously. And yet what else could he do?

"Tell me," he said presently, stroking her silky head as it lay on his breast, "tell me what is the worst that can happen to you, Rachel?"

"The worst," sighed Rachel, "will be hearing Aunt Elizabeth tell me that I have repaid all her generosity and kindness to me with ingrat.i.tude and treachery."

"That will be very bad. But you will have to try and make her understand the real right and justice of it, love. She must see it, unless she is stone blind. She can't expect us to outrage all the laws of nature to suit her narrow schemes. You don't think there will be anything still worse?--that she will make your life wretched by making you feel your dependence--that kind of thing?"

"I am not sure," said Rachel. "She has been very, very good to me; but lately--since she has got suspicious about you--she has been hard.

However, if the worst comes to the worst, I can go and be a governess or companion somewhere until you are ready for me."

"No, Rachel, no; you must promise to tell me if you are persecuted in any way--if you are miserable in your aunt's house--and my sister Lily will take care of you. You are not to let the worst come to the worst--do you hear? You must let me know of anything that happens, and I will come at once and see about it. Oh, my poor little one, I begin to realise what sacrifices you will have to make for me! Will you think the game was worth the candle, I wonder, when you are as old as I am?"

"Yes," said Rachel; "I know I shall--if you will be as contented with me then as you are now."

"Do you _really_ think you have counted the cost?" he persisted anxiously. "Remember, you were going to marry Mr. Kingston, because you thought it would be nice to be rich and to live in a grand house and to wear diamonds."

"That was before I had seen _you_. I don't want to be rich now. Indeed, I would rather not."

"Has anybody told you how poor I am?"

"Yes," she whispered, stealing a timid hand to his shoulder. "I have been thinking of it. Beatrice says it is a mistake for poor men to marry--that they cripple their career. But I hope--I think--_I_ shall not be any burden to you. Once I was poor, too, and I know all about it, and I can manage with a very little. I think I could help you in lots of ways, and not be a hindrance."

"A hindrance, indeed!" he interrupted. "My darling, if I had you for my companion, life would be sweet enough for me, under any circ.u.mstances.

It was your comfort and happiness I was thinking of."

"I only want to be with you," she said, under her breath. "I don't care where--I don't care how."

"_Really_, Rachel?"

"Really, indeed."

"You are so young! Think what a number of years you have before you, in all probability. If you should lose the colour out of your life too soon, if you should have to drudge--but I won't let you drudge," he added, with a sudden touch of fierceness, "I will take care of you, and you shall have all you want. It _won't_ be a sacrifice--not even all this"--looking round him--"if you give it up for a man you love, who has health and strength to work for you. It would make you miserable if you had it. You know it would?"

"I do know it," she responded, without a moment's hesitation.

She had finally made up her mind that after all material poverty was not the worst of life's misfortunes. Indeed, provided the element of debt were absent, she thought it might in Roden Dalrymple's company, "far from the madding crowd," in the lonely wilds of Queensland, be rather pleasant than otherwise; for it would mean the delight of working for and helping one another, and a blessed freedom from interruption and restraint in the enjoyment of that wonderful married life which would be theirs.

"But I should like to know what made you take to me," he went on, in the immemorial fashion, stroking her soft face. "I should like to know why you chose, for your first love--I am your first, am I not, Rachel?"

"You _know_ you are. And it was no matter of choice with me--you know that, too."

"A man who made shipwreck of his fortunes for another woman almost before you were born----"

"Hush!" interrupted Rachel. "I have no rights in your past, and I don't want any. This present is mine, and that is enough for me."

"A battered old vagabond----"

"No," she persisted; "I won't allow you to call yourself a vagabond. It is bad enough to hear other people do it."

"After seeing him under what one would be inclined to consider, well, anything but favourable auspices--for how many days, Rachel?"

"Oh," she said, hiding a scarlet face, "don't remind me of that! It was too soon--but I could not help it."