cannot, of course, help your thoughts; but I can assure you that
they are unnecessary."

"It seems to me so hard that there should be such a gulf between you
and me." This he said after he had been silent for a while; and as he
spoke he looked away from her at the fire.

"I don't know that there is any particular gulf," she replied.

"Yes, there is. And it is you that make it. Whenever I attempt to
speak to you as a friend you draw yourself off from me, and shut
yourself up. I know that it is not jealousy."

"Jealousy, Captain Aylmer!"

"Jealousy with my aunt, I mean."

"No, indeed."

"You are infinitely too proud for that; but I am sure that a stranger
seeing it all would think that it was so."

"I don't know what it is that I do or that I ought not to do. But
all my life everything that I have done at Perivale has always been
wrong."

"It would have been so natural that you and I should be friends."

"If we are enemies, Captain Aylmer, I don't know it."

"But if ever I venture to speak of your future life you always repel
me;--as though you were determined to let me know that it should not
be a matter of care to me."

"That is exactly what I am determined to let you know. You are, or
will be, a rich man, and you have everything the world can give you.
I am, or shall be, a very poor woman."

"Is that a reason why I should not be interested in your welfare?"

"Yes;--the best reason in the world. We are not related to each
other, though we have a common connection in dear Mrs. Winterfield.
And nothing, to my idea, can be more objectionable than any sort of
dependence from a woman of my age on a man of yours,--there being no
real tie of blood between them. I have spoken very plainly, Captain
Aylmer, for you have made me do it."

"Very plainly," he said.

"If I have said anything to offend you, I beg your pardon; but I was
driven to explain myself." Then she got up and took her bed-candle in
her hand.

"You have not offended me," he said, as he also rose.

"Good-night, Captain Aylmer."

He took her hand and kept it. "Say that we are friends."

"Why should we not be friends?"

"There is no reason on my part why we should not be the dearest
friends," he said. "Were it not that I am so utterly without
encouragement, I should say the very dearest." He still held her
hand, and was looking into her face as he spoke. For a moment she
stood there, bearing his gaze, as though she expected some further