mind for
six or seven years, and I have never had an opportunity of getting it
off before. You know if you won't have me for a lover, you may for a
brother.'

'Colonel Vaughan offered me the money, Mr Owen, and I returned it to
him. Who could have told you of that?'

'The boy who saw him give you some money, and picked up the
half-sovereign you dropped.'

'He gave me money for poor Mr Lloyd, who was ill, and offered me the
half-sovereign for myself, which I refused.'

'Why did you refuse it.'

'Because I did not want it, and because he had no right to offer it me.'

'Bravo, Gladys! You are a capital girl!'

'And yet, Mr Owen, you think all sorts of unkind things of me when I am
absent. For six years!'

'How can I help it, Gladys? You know that I love you better than my
life, and yet you won't care one straw for me.'

'Oh! Mr Owen.'

'I can tell you it is no trifling mark of constancy, for a wandering
fellow like me to stick to farming, and doing the dutiful son all these
years. I should have been off to sea again long ago but for you, and--'

'And the father and mother, Mr Owen.'

'Well, yes, to a certain extent. But you always answer every question
but one like a pure, straightforward young woman, as you are. Why won't
you tell me the reason you have for hating me so?'

'I don't hate you, Mr Owen.'

'It must be either love or hate. You don't love me. Do you love any one
else?'

'No.'

'Have you a heart to give?'

'Ye--no.'

'Which do you mean?'

'I cannot tell you, indeed I cannot!'

'Oh! Gladys, if you knew the pain! Why will you not make me happy, or at
least give me a sensible reason?'

'I--I--promised--oh, Mr Owen.'

'Dear Gladys, what? I will never betray you, and will always be a
friend, a brother. Who have you promised? Not to marry, not to love--'

'Your father, Mr Owen. I--I--promised never--to--without his consent.'

Fortunately it was dusk, and the curtain between the double carriage was
drawn, and Netta and Minette were, apparently at least, fast asleep, so
no one saw Owen jump up from his seat with a kind of bound, seize
Gladys' hand, try to look into her face, and finally sit down again,
retaining possession of the said hand across the elbow of the carriage.

'Do you mean, Gladys, that you promised never to marry me without my
father's consent?'

'Yes.'

'Never to love me without his consent?'

'No.'

'That you don't hate me?'

'No.'

'That if I got his consen