on't you
remember that night when I came to fetch you from the workshop, and you
took off your coat and put it over me, because it was cold and raining?'

'Jane, what a long, long time ago that seems!'

'As long as I live I shall never forget it--never! You were the only
friend I had then.'

'No; there was some one else who took thought for you,' said Sidney,
regarding her gravely.

Jane met his look for an instant--they could just read each other's
features in the pale light--then dropped her eyes.

'I don't think you've forgotten that either,' he added, in the same
unusual voice.

'No,' said Jane, below her breath.

'Say who it is I mean.'

'You mean Miss Hewett,' was the reply, after a troubled moment.

'I wanted you to say her name. You remember one evening not long ago,
when your grandfather was away? I had the same wish then. Why shouldn't
we speak of her? She was a friend to you when you needed one badly, and
it's right that you should remember her with gratitude. I think of her
just like we do of people that are dead.'

Jane stood with one hand on the low wall, half-turned to him, but her
face bent downwards. Regarding her for what seemed a long time, Sidney
felt as though the fragrance of the earth and the flowers were mingling
with his blood and confusing him with emotions. At the same his tongue
was paralysed. Frequently of late he had known a timidity in Jane's
presence, which prevented him from meeting her eyes, and now this
tremor came upon him with painful intensity. He knew to what his last
words had tended; it was with consciousness of a distinct purpose that
he had led the conversation to Clara; but now he was powerless to speak
the words his heart prompted. Of a sudden he experienced a kind of
shame, the result of comparison between himself and the simple girl who
stood before him; she was so young, and the memory of passions from
which he had suffered years ago affected him with a sense of
unworthiness, almost of impurity. Jane had come to be his ideal of
maidenhood, but till this moment he had not understood the full
significance of the feeling with which he regarded her. He could not
transform with a word their relations to each other. The temptation of
the hour had hurried him towards an end which he must approach with
more thought, more preparation of himself.

It was scarcely for ten heart-beats. Then Jane raised her eyes and said
in a voice that trembled:

'I've often wished I c