vital.

"I say, I wonder whether you've seen anything of Susannah? What
a young fool I was ever to think I could be happy with a girl
out of a shop. I've met the real and only one now--she's a
nurse; her father was a clergyman in Northumberland. She's such
a bright little thing, and she's never cared for any one before
me. Wish me luck."

John Selborne almost tore his hair.

"Well, I can't save him across half the world! Besides----"

At thirty-seven one should have outgrown the wild impulses of youth. He
said this to himself, but all the same it was the next train to Yalding
that he took.

Fate was kind; at Yalding it had almost always been kind. The glow of
red firelight shone out over the snow through the French window among
the brown jasmine stalks.

Mrs Sheepmarsh was out, Miss Sheepmarsh was at home. Would he step this
way?

He stepped into the presence of the girl. She rose from the low chair by
the fire, and the honest eyes looked angrily at him.

"Look here," he said, as the door closed between them and the
maid-servant, "I've come to tell you things. Just this once let me talk
to you; and afterwards, if you like, I can go away and never come back."

"Sit down," she said coldly. "I don't feel friends with you at all, but
if you want to speak, I suppose you must."

So then he told her everything, beginning with his brother's letter, and
ending with his brother's letter.

"And, of course, I thought it couldn't be you, because of your being
called Celia; and when I found out it really was you, I had to go away,
because I wanted to be fair to the boy. But now I've come back."

"I think you're the meanest person I ever knew," she said; "you thought
I liked your brother, and you tried to make me like you so that you
might throw me over and show him how worthless I was. I hate you and
despise you."

"I didn't really try," he said miserably.

"And you took a false name to deceive us."

"I didn't: it really is my second name."

"And you came here pretending to be nice and a gentleman, and----" She
was lashing herself to rage, with the lash of her own voice, as women
will. John Selborne stood up suddenly.

"Be quiet," he said, and she was quiet. "I won't hear any more
reproaches, unless---- Listen, I've done wrong--I've owned it. I've
suffered for it. God knows I've suffered. You liked me in the summer:
can't you try to like me again? I want you more than anything else