t past so lightly? Her
fear of all its misery was at moments excessive. Looking at her unhappy
parents, she felt that their lot would crush her with pity did she not
see the relief approaching. She saw it, yet too often trembled with the
most baseless fears. She tried to assure herself that she had acted
rightly in resisting Wilfrid's proposal of an immediate marriage, yet
she often wished her conscience had not spoken against it. Wilfrid's own
words, though merely prompted by his eagerness, ceaselessly came back to
her--that it is ill to refuse a kindness offered by fate, so seldom
kind. The words were true enough, and their truth answered to that
melancholy which, when her will was in abeyance, coloured her views of
life.

But here at length was a letter from Wilfrid, a glad, encouraging
letter. His father had concluded that he was staying behind in England
to be married, and evidently would not have disturbed himself greatly
even if such had been the case. All was going well. Nothing of the past
should be sacrificed, and the future was their own.

CHAPTER VIII

A STERNER WOOING

It was an unusual thing for the middle of August to find Richard
Dagworthy still in Dunfield. Through all the other months of the year he
stuck closely to the mill, but the best three weeks of August were his
holiday; as a rule, he went to Scotland, sometimes in company with a
friend, more often alone. In the previous year he had taken a wider
flight, and made his first visit to the Continent, but this was not
likely to be repeated for some time. He always referred to it as more or
less of a feat. The expense, to begin with, was greater than he could
readily reconcile himself to, and the indulgence of his curiosity, not
inactive, hardly compensated for his lack of ease amid the unfamiliar
conditions of foreign travel. Richard represented an intermediate stage
of development between the hard-headed operative who conquers wealth,
and his descendant who shall know what use to make of it. Therein lay
the significance of the man's life.

Its pathos, moreover. Looking at him casually from the outside, one
found small suggestion of the pathetic in his hard face and brusque
manners; nearer companionship revealed occasional glimpses of a mood out
of harmony with the vulgar pursuits and solicitudes which for the most
part seemed to absorb him. One caught a hint of loneliness in his
existence; his reticences, often very marked in the flow