best tell her that which he had now resolved
should be told on this occasion. Dorothy finished her tea and got up
as though she were about to go to her duty up-stairs. She had been as
yet hardly an hour in the room, and the period of her relief was not
fairly over. But there had come something of a personal flavour in
their conversation which prompted her, unconsciously, to leave him.
She had, without any special indication of herself, included herself
among that company of old maids who are born and live and die without
that vital interest in the affairs of life which nothing but family
duties, the care of children, or at least of a husband, will give to
a woman. If she had not meant this she had felt it. He had understood
her meaning, or at least her feeling, and had taken upon himself to
assure her that she was not one of the company whose privations she
had endeavoured to describe. Her instinct rather than her reason put
her at once upon her guard, and she prepared to leave the room. "You
are not going yet," he said.

"I think I might as well. Martha has so much to do, and she comes to
me again at five in the morning."

"Don't go quite yet," he said, pulling out his watch. "I know all
about the hours, and it wants twenty minutes to the proper time."

"There is no proper time, Mr. Burgess."

"Then you can remain a few minutes longer. The fact is, I've got
something I want to say to you."

He was now standing between her and the door, so that she could not
get away from him; but at this moment she was absolutely ignorant of
his purpose, expecting nothing of love from him more than she would
from Sir Peter Mancrudy. Her face had become flushed when she made
her long speech, but there was no blush on it as she answered him
now. "Of course, I can wait," she said, "if you have anything to say
to me."

"Well;--I have. I should have said it before, only that that other
man was here." He was blushing now,--up to the roots of his hair, and
felt that he was in a difficulty. There are men, to whom such moments
of their lives are pleasurable, but Brooke Burgess was not one of
them. He would have been glad to have had it done and over,--so that
then he might take pleasure in it.

"What man?" asked Dorothy, in perfect innocence.

"Mr. Gibson, to be sure. I don't know that there is anybody else."

"Oh, Mr. Gibson. He never comes here now, and I don't suppose he will
again. Aunt Stanbury is so very angry with him."

"I