"All right. You were saying----"

"That my visit here has been simply delightful, and that I must go to
London by an early train to-morrow."

"Paradoxical!" remarked the Captain. "That sounds like your well-bred
servant, who tells you that he has nothing to say against the
situation, but he wishes to leave you at the end of his month. What's
the matter, dear boy? Do you find our Forest hermitage too dull?"

"I should ask nothing kinder from Fate than to be allowed to spend my
days in your Forest. Yes, I would say good-bye to the green hills and
vales of County Cork, and become that detestable being, an absentee,
if--if--Fortune smiled on me. But she doesn't, you see, and I must go.
Perhaps you may have perceived, Winstanley--perhaps you may not have
been altogether averse from the idea--in a word, I have fallen over
head and ears in love with your bewitching stepdaughter."

"My dear fellow, I'm delighted. It is the thing I would have wished,
had I been bold enough to wish for anything so good. And of course
Violet is charmed. You are the very man for her."

"Am I? So I thought myself till this morning. Unfortunately the young
lady is of a different opinion. She has refused me."

"Refused you! Pshaw, they all begin that way. It's one of the small
diplomacies of the sex. They think they enhance their value by an
assumed reluctance. Nonsense, man, try again. She can't help liking
you."

"I would try again, every day for a twelvemonth, if there were a
scintilla of hope. My life should be a series of offers. But the thing
is decided. I know from her manner, from her face, that I have no
chance. I have been in the habit of thinking myself rather a nice kind
of fellow, and the women have encouraged the idea. But I don't answer
here, Winstanley. Miss Tempest will have nothing to say to me."

"She's a fool," said Captain Winstanley, with his teeth set, and that
dark look of his which meant harm to somebody. "I'll talk to her."

"My dear Winstanley, understand I'll have no coercion. If I win her, I
must do it off my own bat. Dearly as I love her, if you were to bring
her to me conquered and submissive, like Iphigenia at the altar, I
would not have her. I love her much too well to ask any sacrifice of
inclination from her. I love her too well to accept anything less than
her free unfettered heart. She cannot give me that, and I must go. I
had much rather you should say nothing about me, either to her or her
mother."

"