societies I can make myself useful in, even if I don't
get into Parliament. Anyway I'm going to try."

"I am so glad, Jim," said Cicely. "But won't you miss Mountfield
awfully? And where are you going to live?"

"In London for a year or two. Must be in the thick of things."

"I suppose you won't go before the spring."

"I want to. It depends on you, Cicely."

She had nothing to say. The flush that coloured her delicate skin so
frequently, flooded it new.

"I want you to come and help me," said Jim. "I can't do it without you,
my dear. You're much cleverer than I am. I want to get to know people,
and I'm not much good at that. And I don't know that I could put up with
London, living there by myself. If you were with me I shouldn't care
where I lived. I would rather live all my life at Melbury Park with you,
than at Mountfield without you."

"O Jim," she said in a low voice, bending over her drawing board, "you
are good and generous. But you can't want me now."

"Look here, Cicely dear," he said, "let's get over that business now,
and leave it alone for ever. I blame myself for it, I blame--that man,
but I haven't got the smallest little piece of blame for you, and I
shouldn't have even if I didn't love you. Why, even Dick is the same. He
was angry at first, but not after he had seen you. And Walter thinks as
I do. I saw him one day and we had it all out; you didn't know. There's
not a soul who knows who blames you, and nobody ever will."

"I know," she said, "that every one has been most extraordinarily kind.
I love Dick and Walter more than ever for it, because I know how it must
have struck them when they first knew. And you too, Jim. It makes me
feel such a beast to think how sweet you were to me, and how I've
treated you."

Jim took her hand. "Cicely, darling," he said. "I'm a slow fellow, and,
I'm afraid, rather stupid. If I hadn't been this would never have
happened. But I believe I'm the only person in the world that can make
you forget it. You'll let me try, won't you?"

She tried to draw away her hand, but he held it.

"Oh, I don't know what to say," she cried. "It is all such a frightful
muddle. I don't even know whether I love you or not. I do; you know
that, Jim. But I don't know whether I love you in the right way. I
thought before that I didn't. And how can I when I did a thing like
that? I'm a girl who goes to any man who calls her."

She was weeping bitterly. All the shame in her heart sur