rms too high of Miss Dale; but I am
quite sure that I could not make her happy as her husband."

"Why did you not think of that before you asked her?" said
Alexandrina. But there was very little of condemnation in her tone.

"I ought to have done so; but it is hardly for you to blame me with
severity. Had you, when we were last together in London--had you been
less--"

"Less what?"

"Less defiant," said Crosbie, "all this might perhaps have been
avoided."

Lady Alexandrina could not remember that she had been defiant; but,
however, she let that pass. "Oh, yes; of course it was my fault."

"I went down there to Allington with my heart ill at ease, and now I
have fallen into this trouble. I tell you all as it has happened. It
is impossible that I should marry Miss Dale. It would be wicked in me
to do so, seeing that my heart belongs altogether to another. I have
told you who is that other; and now may I hope for an answer?"

"An answer to what?"

"Alexandrina, will you be my wife?"

If it had been her object to bring him to a point-blank declaration
and proposition of marriage, she had certainly achieved her object
now. And she had that trust in her own power of management and in her
mother's, that she did not fear that in accepting him she would incur
the risk of being served as he was serving Lily Dale. She knew her
own position and his too well for that. If she accepted him she would
in due course of time become his wife,--let Miss Dale and all her
friends say what they might to the contrary. As to that head she had
no fear. But nevertheless she did not accept him at once. Though she
wished for the prize, her woman's nature hindered her from taking it
when it was offered to her.

"How long is it, Mr Crosbie," she said, "since you put the same
question to Miss Dale?"

"I have told you everything, Alexandrina,--as I promised that I would
do. If you intend to punish me for doing so--"

"And I might ask another question. How long will it be before you put
the same question to some other girl?"

He turned round as though to walk away from her in anger; but when he
had gone half the distance to the door he returned.

"By heaven!" he said, and he spoke somewhat roughly, too, "I'll have
an answer. You at any rate have nothing with which to reproach me.
All that I have done wrong, I have done through you, or on your
behalf. You have heard my proposal. Do you intend to accept it?"

"I declare you startle me.