cial
objections, and he will only think the better of me for following his
example. You say, and I am sure, that you care nothing for the show of a
wedding; if you did, I should not be here at this moment. It is only for
that that we need postpone the marriage. I will take rooms till I can
find a house and have it made ready for us.'

Emily kept silence. She had released his hand. There were signs on her
face of severe inward conflict.

'Will you let me go and see your parents?' he asked. 'Shall our marriage
take place here? To me it is the same; I would only be ruled by your
choice. May I go home with you now?'

'I would say yes if I could make up my mind to a marriage at once,' she
answered. 'Dear, let me persuade you.'

'The sound of your words persuades too strongly against their sense,
Emily,' he said tenderly. 'I will not put off our marriage a day longer
than forms make necessary.'

'Wilfrid, let me say what--'

'I have scraps of superstition in my nature,' he broke in with a half
laugh. 'Fate does not often deal so kindly as in giving you to me; I
dare not _seem_ even to hesitate before the gift. It is a test of the
worth that is in us. We meet by chance, and we recognise each other;
here is the end for which we might have sought a lifetime; we are not
worthy of it if we hold back from paltry considerations. I dare not
leave you, Emily; everything points to one result--the rejection of the
scheme for your return, my father's free surrender of the decision to
myself, the irresistible impulse which has brought me here to you. Did I
tell you that I rose in the middle of the night and went to Charing
Cross to telegraph? It would have done just as well the first thing in
the morning, but I could not rest till the message was sent. I will have
no appearances come between us; there shall be no pause till you bear my
name and have entered my home; after that, let life do with us what it
will.'

Emily drank in the vehement flow of words with delight and fear. It was
this virile eagerness, this force of personality, which had before
charmed her thought into passiveness, and made her senses its subject;
but a stronger motive of resistance actuated her now. In her humility
she could not deem the instant gain of herself to be an equivalent to
him for what he would certainly, and what he might perchance, lose. She
feared that he had disguised his father's real displeasure, and she
could not reconcile herself to the a