added, looking up at him suddenly with a
catching of her breath.

Sir Tom did not say she was wrong. He was very kind, but very grave. "In
that case," he said, "Lucy, my love, don't you think it would have been
better to speak to me about it, and ascertain what were my objections,
and why I was opposed to you--rather than turn without a word to another
instead of me?"

"Oh!" cried Lucy, "I could not. I was a coward. I could not bear to make
sure. To stand against you, how could I do it? But if you will hear me
out, Tom, I never, never turned to another. Oh! what strange words to
say. It was not another. It was Jock, only Jock; but I did not turn even
to him. It was he who brought it forward, and I---- Now that we have
begun to talk about it, and it cannot be escaped," cried Lucy, with
sudden nervous boldness, freeing herself from his hold, "I will own
everything to you, Tom. Yes, I was afraid. I would not, I could not do
it, for I could feel that you were against it. You never said anything;
is it necessary that you should speak for me to understand you? but I
knew it all through. And to go against you and do something you did not
like was more than I could face. I should have gone on for years,
perhaps, and never had courage for it," she cried. She was tingling all
over with excitement and desperate daring now.

"My darling," said Sir Tom, "it makes me happier to think that it was
not me you were afraid of, but only of putting yourself in opposition to
me; but still, Lucy, even that is not right, you know. Don't you think
that it would be better that we should talk it over, and that I should
show you my objections to this strange scheme you have in your head, and
convince you----"

"Oh!" cried Lucy, stepping back a little and putting up her hands as if
in self-defence, "that was what I was most frightened for."

"What, to be convinced?" he laughed: but his laugh jarred upon her in
her excited state. "Well, that is not at all uncommon; but few people
avow it so frankly," he said.

She looked up at him with appealing eyes. "Oh, Tom," she cried, "I fear
you will not understand me now. I am not afraid to be convinced. I am
afraid of what you will think when you know that I cannot be convinced.
Now," she said, with a certain calm of despair, "I have said it all."

To her astonishment her husband replied by a sudden hug and a laugh.
"Whether you are accessible to reason or not, you are always my dear
little woman,"