w--I know! Don't tell me! But it was that, I am sure. He would
resent the mere look of things, and then he would think and think, and
the notion of your uncle's shop would occur to him again, after all
these years. I can see his thoughts as plain ... My dear, if he had not
seen you at Machin Street yesterday, or if you had seen him and spoken
to him, all might have gone right. He would have objected, but he would
have given way in a day or two. Now he will never give way! I asked you
just now what was to be done, but I knew all the time that there was
nothing.'

'There is one thing to be done, Eva, and the sooner the better.'

'Do you mean that old Mr. Timmis must give up his shop to my father?
Never! never!'

'I mean,' said Clive quietly, 'that we must marry without your father's
consent.'

She shook her head slowly and sadly, relapsing into calmness.

'You shake your head, Eva, but it must be so.'

'I can't, my dear.'

'Do you mean to say that you will allow your father's childish whim--for
it's nothing else; he can't find any objection to me as a husband for
you, and he knows it--that you will allow his childish whim to spoil
your life and mine? Remember, you are twenty-six and I am thirty-two.'

'I can't do it! I daren't! I'm mad with myself for feeling like this,
but I daren't! And even if I dared I wouldn't. Clive, you don't know!
You can't tell how it is!'

Her sorrowful, pathetic firmness daunted him. She was now composed,
mistress again of herself, and her moral force dominated him.

'Then, you and I are to be unhappy all our lives, Eva?'

The soft influences of the night seemed to direct her voice as, after a
long pause, she uttered the words: 'No one is ever quite unhappy in all
this world.' There was another pause, as she gazed steadily down into
the wonderful valley. 'We must wait.'

'Wait!' echoed Clive with angry grimness. 'He will live for twenty
years!'

'No one is ever quite unhappy in all this world,' she repeated dreamily,
as one might turn over a treasure in order to examine it.

Now for the epilogue to the feud. Two years passed, and it happened
that there was to be a Revival at the Bethesda Chapel. One morning the
superintendent minister and the revivalist called on Ezra Brunt at his
shop. When informed of their presence, the great draper had an impulse
of anger, for, like many stouter chapel-goers than himself, he would
scarcely tolerate the intrusion of religion into commerce. H