"Marry him," said Janet, "and you will adore him afterwards."

"I want to adore him first," said Mary.

So she resolved that she would tell Walter Marrable what was her
position. They were again down on the banks of the Lurwell, sitting
together on a slope which had been made to support some hundred yards
of a canal, where the river itself rippled down a slightly rapid
fall. They were seated between the canal and the river, with their
feet towards the latter, and Walter Marrable was just lighting a
cigar. It was very easy to bring the conversation round to the
affairs of Bullhampton, as Sam was still in prison, and Janet's
letters were full of the mystery which shrouded the murder of Mr.
Trumbull.

"By the bye," said she, "I have something to tell you about Mr.
Gilmore."

"Tell away," said he, as he turned the cigar round in his mouth, to
complete the lighting of the edges in the wind.

"Ah, but I shan't, unless you will interest yourself. What I am going
to tell you ought to interest you."

"He has made you a proposal of marriage?"

"Yes."

"I knew it."

"How could you know it? Nobody has told you."

"I felt sure of it from the way in which you speak of him. But I
thought also that you had refused him. Perhaps I was wrong there?"

"No."

"You have refused him?"

"Yes."

"I don't see that there is very much of a story to be told, Mary."

"Don't be so unkind, Walter. There is a story, and one that troubles
me. If it were not so I should not have proposed to tell you. I
thought that you would give me advice, and tell me what I ought to
do."

"But if you have refused him, you have done so,--no doubt
rightly,--without my advice; and I am too late in the field to be of
any service."

"You must let me tell my own story, and you must be good to me while
I do so. I think I shouldn't tell you if I hadn't almost made up my
mind; but I shan't tell you which way, and you must advise me. In the
first place, though I did refuse him, the matter is still open, and
he is to ask me again, if he pleases."

"He has your permission for that?"

"Well,--yes. I hope it wasn't wrong. I did so try to be right."

"I do not say you were wrong."

"I like him so much, and think him so good, and do really feel that
his affection is so great an honour to me, that I could not answer
him as though I were quite indifferent to him."

"At any rate, he is to come again?"

"If he pleases."

"Does he really love you?"

"Ho