nd now whether she had been right then, and that the man's
feelings, and almost his nature, had since changed,--or whether he had
really loved her from first to last. As he remained silent it was
necessary that she should answer him. 'You can hardly have thought of
it enough,' she said.

'I have thought of it a good deal too. I have been thinking of it for
six months at least.'

'There is so much against me.'

'What is there against you?'

'They say bad things of me in India.'

'I know all about that,' replied Mr Broune.

'And Felix!'

'I think I may say that I know all about that also.'

'And then I have become so poor!'

'I am not proposing to myself to marry you for your money. Luckily for
me,--I hope luckily for both of us,--it is not necessary that I should
do so.'

'And then I seem so to have fallen through in everything. I don't know
what I've got to give to a man in return for all that you offer to
give to me.'

'Yourself,' he said, stretching out his right hand to her.

And there he sat with it stretched out,--so that she found herself
compelled to put her own into it, or to refuse to do so with very
absolute words. Very slowly she put out her own, and gave it to him
without looking at him. Then he drew her towards him, and in a moment
she was kneeling at his feet, with her face buried on his knees.
Considering their ages perhaps we must say that their attitude was
awkward. They would certainly have thought so themselves had they
imagined that any one could have seen them. But how many absurdities
of the kind are not only held to be pleasant, but almost holy,--as long
as they remain mysteries inspected by no profane eyes! It is not that
Age is ashamed of feeling passion and acknowledging it,--but that the
display of it is without the graces of which Youth is proud, and which
Age regrets.

On that occasion there was very little more said between them. He had
certainly been in earnest, and she had now accepted him. As he went
down to his office he told himself now that he had done the best, not
only for her but for himself also. And yet I think that she had won
him more thoroughly by her former refusal than by any other virtue.

She, as she sat alone, late into the night, became subject to a
thorough reaction of spirit. That morning the world had been a perfect
blank to her. There was no single object of interest before her. Now
everything was rose-coloured. This man who had thus bound her to h