"I came to speak of Crossjay."

"Will you sit here on the ottoman?"

"No, I cannot wait. I hoped I had heard Crossjay return. I would rather not sit down. May I entreat you to pardon him when he comes home?"

"You, and you only, may do so. I permit none else. Of Crossjay to-morrow."

"He may be lying in the fields. We are anxious."

"The rascal can take pretty good care of himself."

"Crossjay is perpetually meeting accidents."

"He shall be indemnified if he has had excess of punishment."

"I think I will say good-night, Sir Willoughby."

"When freely and unreservedly you have given me your hand."

There was hesitation.

"To say good-night?"

"I ask you for your hand."

"Good-night, Sir Willoughby."

"You do not give it. You are in doubt? Still? What language must I use to convince you? And yet you know me. Who knows me but you? You have always known me. You are my home and my temple. Have you forgotten your verses of the day of my majority?

'The dawn-star has arisen In plenitude of light . . .'"

"Do not repeat them, pray!" cried Laetitia, with a gasp.

"I have repeated them to myself a thousand times: in India, America, Japan: they were like our English skylark, carolling to me.

'My heart, now burst thy prison With proud aerial flight!'"

"Oh, I beg you will not force me to listen to nonsense that I wrote when I was a child. No more of those most foolish lines! If you knew what it is to write and despise one's writing, you would not distress me. And since you will not speak of Crossjay to-night, allow me to retire."

"You know me, and therefore you know my contempt for verses, as a rule, Laetitia. But not for yours to me. Why should you call them foolish?

They expressed your feelings--hold them sacred. They are something religious to me, not mere poetry. Perhaps the third verse is my favourite . . ."

"It will be more than I can bear!"

"You were in earnest when you wrote them?"

"I was very young, very enthusiastic, very silly."

"You were and are my image of constancy!"

"It is an error, Sir Willoughby; I am far from being the same."

"We are all older, I trust wiser. I am, I will own; much wiser. Wise at last! I offer you my hand."

She did not reply. "I offer you my hand and name, Laetitia."

No response.

"You think me bound in honour to another?"

She was mute.

"I am free. Thank Heaven! I am free to choose my mate--the woman I have always loved! Freely and unreservedly, as I ask you to give your hand, I offer mine. You are the mistress of Patterne Hall; my wife."

She had not a word.

"My dearest! do you not rightly understand? The hand I am offering you is disengaged. It is offered to the lady I respect above all others. I have made the discovery that I cannot love without respecting; and as I will not marry without loving, it ensues that I am free--I am yours. At last?--your lips move: tell me the words. Have always loved, I said.

You carry in your bosom the magnet of constancy, and I, in spite of apparent deviations, declare to you that I have never ceased to be sensible of the attraction. And now there is not an impediment. We two against the world! we are one. Let me confess to an old foible--perfectly youthful, and you will ascribe it to youth: once I desired to absorb. I mistrusted; that was the reason: I perceive it.

You teach me the difference of an alliance with a lady of intellect.

The pride I have in you, Laetitia, definitely cures me of that insane passion--call it an insatiable hunger. I recognize it as a folly of youth. I have, as it were, gone the tour, to come home to you--at last?--and live our manly life of comparative equals. At last, then!

But remember that in the younger man you would have had a despot--perhaps a jealous despot. Young men, I assure you, are orientally inclined in their ideas of love. Love gets a bad name from them. We, my Laetitia, do not regard love as a selfishness. If it is, it is the essence of life. At least it is our selfishness rendered beautiful. I talk to you like a man who has found a compatriot in a foreign land. It seems to me that I have not opened my mouth for an age. I certainly have not unlocked my heart. Those who sing for joy are not unintelligible to me. If I had not something in me worth saying I think I should sing. In every sense you reconcile me to men and the world, Laetitia. Why press you to speak? I will be the speaker. As surely as you know me, I know you: and . . ."

Laetitia burst forth with: "No!"

"I do not know you?" said he, searchingly mellifluous.

"Hardly."

"How not?"

"I am changed."

"In what way?"

"Deeply."

"Sedater?"

"Materially."

"Colour will come back: have no fear; I promise it. If you imagine you want renewing, I have the specific, I, my love, I!"

"Forgive me--will you tell me, Sir Willoughby, whether you have broken with Miss Middleton?"

"Rest satisfied, my dear Laetitia. She is as free as I am. I can do no more than a man of honour should do. She releases me. To-morrow or next day she departs. We, Laetitia, you and I, my love, are home birds.

It does not do for the home bird to couple with the migratory. The little imperceptible change you allude to, is nothing. Italy will restore you. I am ready to stake my own health--never yet shaken by a doctor of medicine:--I say medicine advisedly, for there are doctors of divinity who would shake giants:--that an Italian trip will send you back--that I shall bring you home from Italy a blooming bride. You shake your head--despondently? My love, I guarantee it. Cannot I give you colour? Behold! Come to the light, look in the glass."

"I may redden," said Laetitia. "I suppose that is due to the action of the heart. I am changed. Heart, for any other purpose, I have not. I am like you, Sir Willoughby, in this: I could not marry without loving, and I do not know what love is, except that it is an empty dream."