he loved this woman, and having now reason
to believe that she was free to receive his love, at least if she
pleased to do so, he followed her into the garden to make such wooing
as he could.

He was not long in finding her. She was walking to and fro beneath
the avenue of elms that stood in the archdeacon's grounds, skirting
the churchyard. What had passed between her and Mr. Arabin had not,
alas, tended to lessen the acerbity of her spirit. She was very
angry--more angry with him than with anyone. How could he have so
misunderstood her? She had been so intimate with him, had allowed
him such latitude in what he had chosen to say to her, had complied
with his ideas, cherished his views, fostered his precepts, cared for
his comforts, made much of him in every way in which a pretty woman
can make much of an unmarried man without committing herself or her
feelings! She had been doing this, and while she had been doing it
he had regarded her as the affianced wife of another man.

As she passed along the avenue, every now and then an unbidden tear
would force itself on her cheek, and as she raised her hand to brush
it away, she stamped with her little foot upon the sward with very
spite to think that she had been so treated.

Mr. Arabin was very near to her when she first saw him, and she
turned short round and retraced her steps down the avenue, trying to
rid her cheeks of all trace of the tell-tale tears. It was a needless
endeavour, for Mr. Arabin was in a state of mind that hardly allowed
him to observe such trifles. He followed her down the walk and
overtook her just as she reached the end of it.

He had not considered how he would address her; he had not thought
what he would say. He had only felt that it was wretchedness to him
to quarrel with her, and that it would be happiness to be allowed to
love her. And yet he could not lower himself by asking her pardon.
He had done her no wrong. He had not calumniated her, not injured
her, as she had accused him of doing. He could not confess sins of
which he had not been guilty. He could only let the past be past and
ask her as to her and his hopes for the future.

"I hope we are not to part as enemies?" said he.

"There shall be no enmity on my part," said Eleanor; "I endeavour to
avoid all enmities. It would be a hollow pretence were I to say that
there can be true friendship between us, after what has just passed.
People cannot make their friends of those whom they