may have to wait for years--we may have to wait for ever, if we wait
until life is safe. We may be separated.... We may lose one another
altogether.... Let us fight against it. Why should we separate?
Unless True Love is like the other things--an empty cant. This is the
only way. We two--who belong to one another."

She looked at him, her face perplexed with this new idea, her heart
beating very fast. "We are so young," she said. "And how are we to
live? You get a guinea."

"I can get more--I can earn more, I have thought it out. I have been
thinking of it these two days. I have been thinking what we could
do. I have money."

"You have money?"

"Nearly a hundred pounds."

"But we are so young--And my mother ..."

"We won't ask her. We will ask no one. This is _our_ affair. Ethel!
this is _our_ affair. It is not a question of ways and means--even
before this--I have thought ... Dear one!--_don't_ you love me?"

She did not grasp his emotional quality. She looked at him with
puzzled eyes--still practical--making the suggestion arithmetical.

"I could typewrite if I had a machine. I have heard--"

"It's not a question of ways and means. Now. Ethel--I have longed--"

He stopped. She looked at his face, at his eyes now eager and eloquent
with the things that never shaped themselves into words.

"_Dare_ you come with me?" he whispered.

Suddenly the world opened out in reality to her as sometimes it had
opened out to her in wistful dreams. And she quailed before it. She
dropped her eyes from his. She became a fellow-conspirator. "But,
how--?"

"I will think how. Trust me! Surely we know each other now--Think! We
two--"

"But I have never thought--"

"I could get apartments for us both. It would be so easy. And think of
it--think--of what life would be!"

"How can I?"

"You will come?"

She looked at him, startled. "You know," she said, "you must know I
would like--I would love--"

"You will come?"

"But, dear--! Dear, if you _make_ me--"

"Yes!" cried Lewisham triumphantly. "You will come." He glanced round
and his voice dropped. "Oh! my dearest! my dearest!..."

His voice sank to an inaudible whisper. But his face was eloquent. Two
garrulous, home-going clerks passed opportunely to remind him that his
emotions were in a public place.

CHAPTER XX.

THE CAREER IS SUSPENDED.

On the Wednesday afternoon following this--it was hard upon the
botanical examination--Mr. Lewisham was observ