this of Mrs Dale's enforced presence, would prevent it. Of this
Mrs Dale was well aware; and she felt, moreover, that John was
entitled to an opportunity of pleading his own cause. It might be
that such opportunity would avail him nothing, but not the less
should he have it of right, seeing that he desired it. But yet Mrs
Dale did not dare to get up and leave the room. Lily had asked her
not to do so, and at the present period of their lives all Lily's
requests were sacred. They continued for some time to talk of Crofts
and his marriage; and when that subject was finished, they discussed
their own probable,--or, as it seemed now, improbable,--removal to
Guestwick. "It's going too far, mamma," said Lily, "to say that you
think we shall not go. It was only last night that you suggested it.
The truth is, John, that Hopkins came in and discoursed with the
most wonderful eloquence. Nobody dared to oppose Hopkins. He made us
almost cry; he was so pathetic."

"He has just been talking to me, too," said John, "as I came through
the squire's garden."

"And what has he been saying to you?" said Mrs Dale.

"Oh, I don't know; not much." John, however, remembered well, at this
moment, all that the gardener had said to him. Did she know of that
encounter between him and Crosbie? and if she did know of it, in what
light did she regard it?

They had sat thus for an hour together, and Eames was not as yet an
inch nearer to his object. He had sworn to himself that he would not
leave the Small House without asking Lily to be his wife. It seemed
to him as though he would be guilty of falsehood towards the earl if
he did so. Lord De Guest had opened his house to him, and had asked
all the Dales there, and had offered himself up as a sacrifice at the
cruel shrine of a serious dinner-party, to say nothing of that easier
and lighter sacrifice which he had made in a pecuniary point of view,
in order that this thing might be done. Under such circumstances
Eames was too honest a man not to do it, let the difficulties in his
way be what they might.

He had sat there for an hour, and Mrs Dale still remained with her
daughter. Should he get up boldly and ask Lily to put on her bonnet
and come out into the garden? As the thought struck him, he rose and
grasped at his hat. "I am going to walk back to Guestwick," said he.

"It was very good of you to come so far to see us."

"I was always fond of walking," he said. "The earl wanted me to ride,