William began to feel uncomfortable, and to wonder what his kinsman had been up to.

"I hope you have not been getting into any foolish matrimonial entanglement?" he questioned seriously.

Sam laughed heartily and good-humouredly.

"No, no; things are not quite so bad as that," he said. "The fact is, I would like to get into a matrimonial entanglement, as you call it, but not into a foolish one."

Then he stopped suddenly, and began to fidget again in his chair.

"Then you are not engaged yet?"

"Well, not quite."

And Sam laughed again.

William waited for him to continue, but Sam appeared to start off on an entirely new tack.

"I don't think I've been in St. Goram parish since the sale at Hillside Farm. You remember it?"

"Very well!"

"How bad luck seems to dog the steps of some people. I felt tremendously sorry for David Penlogan. He was a good man, by all accounts."

"There was no more saintly man in the three parishes."

"The mischief is, saints are generally so unpractical. They tell me the son is of different fibre."

"He's as upright as his father, but with a difference."

"A cruel thing to send him to gaol on suspicion, and keep him there so long."

"It was a wicked thing to do, but it hasn't spoilt him. He's the most popular man in St. Ivel to-day."

"I remember him at the sale--a handsome, high-spirited fellow; but his sister interested me most. I thought her smile the sweetest I had ever seen."

"She's as sweet as her smile, and a good deal more so," William said, with warmth. "In fact, she has no equal hereabouts."

"I hear you are on friendly terms with them."

"Well, yes," William said slowly. "Not that I would presume to call myself their equal, for they are in reality very superior people.

There's no man in St. Goram, and I include the landed folk, so well educated or so widely read as Ralph Penlogan."

"And his sister?"

"She's a lady, every inch of her," William said warmly; "and what is more, they'll make their way in the world. He's ability, and of no ordinary kind. The rich folk may crush him for a moment, but he'll come into his own in the long-run."

"Are they the proud sort?"

"Proud? Well, it all depends on what you mean by the word. Dignity they have, self-respect, independence; but pride of the common or garden sort they haven't a bit."

"I thought I could not be mistaken," Sam said, after a pause; "and to tell you the honest truth, I've never been able to think of any other girl since I saw Miss Penlogan at the sale."

William started and grew very pale.

"I don't think I quite understand," he said, after a long pause.

"Do you believe in love at first sight?" Sam questioned eagerly.

"I don't know that I do," William answered.

"Well, I do," Sam retorted. "A man may fall desperately in love with a girl without even speaking to her."

"Well?" William questioned.

"That's just my case."

"Your case?"

Sam nodded.

"Explain yourself," William said, with a curiously numb feeling at his heart.

"Mind, I am speaking to you in perfect confidence," Sam said.

William a.s.sented.

"I was taken with Ruth Penlogan the very first moment I set eyes on her.

I don't think it was pity, mind you, though I did pity her from my very heart. Her great sad eyes; her sweet, patient face; her gentle, pathetic smile--they just bowled me over. I could have knelt down at her feet and worshipped her."

"You didn't do it?" William questioned huskily.

"It was neither the time nor the place, and I have never had an opportunity since. I saw her again and again in the streets of St.

Hilary, but, of course, I could not speak to her, and I didn't know a soul who could get me an introduction."

"And you mean that you are in love with her?"

"I expect I am," Sam answered, with an uneasy laugh. "If I'm not in love, I don't know what ails me. I want a wife badly. A man in a big house without a wife to look after things is to be pitied. Well, that's just my case."

"But--but----" William began; then hesitated.

"You mean that there are plenty of eligible girls in Pentudy?" Sam questioned. "I don't deny it. We have any amount. All sorts and sizes, if you'll excuse me saying so. Girls with good looks and girls with money. Girls of weight, and girls with figures. But they don't interest me, not one of them. I compare 'em all with Ruth Penlogan, and then it's all up a tree."

"But you have never spoken to Miss Penlogan."

"That's just the point I'm coming to. The Penlogans are friends of yours. You go to their house sometimes. Now I want you to take me with you some day and introduce me. Don't you see? There's no impropriety in it. I'm perfectly honest and sincere. I want to get to know her, and then, of course, I'll take my chance."

William looked steadily at his kinsman, and a troubled expression came into his eyes. He loved Ruth Penlogan himself, loved her with a pa.s.sionate devotion that once he hardly believed possible. She had become the light of his eyes, the sunshine of his life. He hardly realised until this moment how much she had become to him. The thought of her being claimed by another man was almost torture to him; and yet, ought he to stand in the way of her happiness?

This might be the working of an inscrutable Providence. Sam Tremail, from all he had ever heard, was a most excellent fellow. He could place Ruth in a position that was worthy of her, and one that she would in every way adorn. He could lift her above the possibility of want, and out of reach of worry. He could give her a beautiful home and an a.s.sured position.