you more plainly than to
her. Indeed I have laid bare to you my whole heart and my whole mind.
You have all my wishes, but you will understand that I do not promise
you my continued assistance." When he had so spoken he put out his
hand and pressed his companion's arm. Then he turned slowly into a
little by-path which led across the park up to the house, and left
Arthur Fletcher standing alone by the river's bank.

And so by degrees the blow had come full home to him. He had been
twice refused. Then rumours had reached him,--not at first that he
had a rival, but that there was a man who might possibly become so.
And now this rivalry, and its success, were declared to him plainly.
He told himself from this moment that he had not a chance. Looking
forward he could see it all. He understood the girl's character
sufficiently to be sure that she would not be wafted about, from one
lover to another, by change of scene. Taking her to Dresden,--or to
New Zealand,--would only confirm in her passion such a girl as Emily
Wharton. Nothing could shake her but the ascertained unworthiness of
the man,--and not that unless it were ascertained beneath her own
eyes. And then years must pass by before she would yield to another
lover. There was a further question, too, which he did not fail to
ask himself. Was the man necessarily unworthy because his name was
Lopez, and because he had not come of English blood?

As he strove to think of this, if not coolly yet rationally, he sat
himself down on the river's side and began to pitch stones off the
path in among the rocks, among which at that spot the water made
its way rapidly. There had been moments in which he had been almost
ashamed of his love,--and now he did not know whether to be most
ashamed or most proud of it. But he recognised the fact that it was
crucifying him, and that it would continue to crucify him. He knew
himself in London to be a popular man,--one of those for whom,
according to general opinion, girls should sigh, rather than one who
should break his heart sighing for a girl. He had often told himself
that it was beneath his manliness to be despondent; that he should
let such a trouble run from him like water from a duck's back,
consoling himself with the reflection that if the girl had such bad
taste she could hardly be worthy of him. He had almost tried to
belong to that school which throws the heart away and rules by the
head alone. He knew that others,--perhaps not