The facts in the case were easy enough to understand.  For the first time in his life he had looked into the eyes of a woman who loved him, and he had discovered to his utter surprise that he loved her.  There had been no plan; no prudent outlook into her nature and feelings; no cautious insight into his own.  He had taken part in a most unpremeditated act of pure and simple love; and that it was real and pure love on each side, he no more doubted than he doubted that he lived.  And yet, had he been an impostor when, on that hill over there, he told Roberta March he loved her?  No, he had been honest, he had loved her; and, since the time that he had been roused to action by the discovery of Junius Keswick’s intentions to renew his suit, it had been a love full of a rare and alluring beauty.  But its charm, its fascination, its very existence, had disappeared in the first flash of his knowledge that Annie Peyton loved him.  Had his love for Roberta been a perfect one, had he been sure that she returned it, then it could not have been overthrown; but it had gone, and a love, complete and perfect, stood in its place.  He had seen that he was loved, and he loved.  That was all, but it would stand forever.

This was the state of the case, and now Lawrence set himself to discover if, in all ways, he had acted truly and honestly.  He had been accepted by Miss March, but what sort of acceptance was it?  Should he, as a man true to himself, accept such an acceptance?  What was he to think of a woman who, very angry as he had been informed, had sent him a message, which meant everything in the world to him, if it meant anything, and had then dashed away without allowing him a chance to speak to her, or even giving him a nod of farewell.  The last thing she had really said to him in this connection were those cruel words on Pine Top Hill, with which she had asked him to choose a spot in which to be rejected.  Could he consider himself engaged?  Would a woman who cared for him act towards him in such a manner?  After all, was that acceptance anything more than the result of pique?  And could he not, quite as justly, accept the rejection which she had professed herself anxious to give him.

A short time before, Lawrence had done his best to explain to his advantage these peculiarities of his status in regard to Miss March.  He had said to himself that she had threatened to reject him because she wished to punish him, and he had intended to implore her pardon, and expected to receive it.  Over and over again, had he argued with himself in this strain, and yet, in spite of it all, he had not been able to bring himself into a state of mind in which he could sit down and write to her a letter, which, in his estimation, would be certain to seal and complete the engagement.  “How very glad I am,” he now said to himself, “that I never wrote that letter!” And this was the only decision at which he had arrived, when he heard Mrs Keswick calling to him from the yard.