years. Every moment of his life he's forming you, telling you what's
charming or amusing or ladylike, telling you what a man thinks womanly;
and you, you of all women, listen to his voice instead of to your own.
So it was at the Rectory, when I met you both again; so it has been
the whole of this afternoon. Therefore--not 'therefore I kissed you,'
because the book made me do that, and I wish to goodness I had more
self-control. I'm not ashamed. I don't apologize. But it has frightened
you, and you may not have noticed that I love you. Or would you have
told me to go, and dealt with a tremendous thing so lightly? But
therefore--therefore I settled to fight him."

Lucy thought of a very good remark.

"You say Mr. Vyse wants me to listen to him, Mr. Emerson. Pardon me for
suggesting that you have caught the habit."

And he took the shoddy reproof and touched it into immortality. He said:

"Yes, I have," and sank down as if suddenly weary. "I'm the same kind of
brute at bottom. This desire to govern a woman--it lies very deep, and
men and women must fight it together before they shall enter the garden.
But I do love you surely in a better way than he does." He thought.
"Yes--really in a better way. I want you to have your own thoughts even
when I hold you in my arms," He stretched them towards her. "Lucy, be
quick--there's no time for us to talk now--come to me as you came in the
spring, and afterwards I will be gentle and explain. I have cared
for you since that man died. I cannot live without you, 'No good,' I
thought; 'she is marrying some one else'; but I meet you again when all
the world is glorious water and sun. As you came through the wood I
saw that nothing else mattered. I called. I wanted to live and have my
chance of joy."

"And Mr. Vyse?" said Lucy, who kept commendably calm. "Does he not
matter? That I love Cecil and shall be his wife shortly? A detail of no
importance, I suppose?"

But he stretched his arms over the table towards her.

"May I ask what you intend to gain by this exhibition?"

He said: "It is our last chance. I shall do all that I can." And as
if he had done all else, he turned to Miss Bartlett, who sat like some
portent against the skies of the evening. "You wouldn't stop us this
second time if you understood," he said. "I have been into the dark, and
I am going back into it, unless you will try to understand."

Her long, narrow head drove backwards and forwards, as though
demolish