“Do you mind talking it over with me, Grizel?” he asked.  “I have always been well aware that you did not care for me in that way, but nevertheless I believe you might do worse.”

“No woman could do better,” she answered gravely.  “I should like you to talk it over, David, if you begin at the beginning”; and she sat down with her hands crossed.

“I won’t say what a good thing it would be for me,” was his beginning; “we may take that for granted.”

“I don’t think we can,” she remarked; “but it scarcely matters at present.  That is not the beginning, David.”

He was very anxious to make it the beginning.

“I am weary of living in lodgings,” he said.  “The practice suffers by my not being married.  Many patients dislike being attended by a single man.  I ought to be in McQueen’s house; it has been so long known as the doctor’s house.  And you should be a doctor’s wife—­you who could almost be the doctor.  It would be a shame, Grizel, if you who are so much to patients were to marry out of the profession.  Don’t you follow me?”

“I follow you,” she replied; “but what does it matter?  You have not begun at the beginning.”  He looked at her inquiringly.  “You must begin,” she informed him, “by saying why you ask me to marry you when you don’t love me.”  She added, in answer to another look from him:  “You know you don’t.”  There was a little reproach in it.  “Oh, David, what made you think I could be so easily taken in!”

He looked so miserable that by and by she smiled, not so tremulously as before.

“How bad at it you are, David!” she said.

And how good at it she was! he thought gloomily.

“Shall I help you out?” she asked gently, but speaking with dignity.  “You think I am unhappy; you believe I am in the position in which you placed yourself, of caring for someone who does not care for me.”

“Grizel, I mistrust him.”

She flushed; she was not quite so gentle now.  “And so you offer me your hand to save me!  It was a great self-sacrifice, David, but you used not to be fond of doing showy things.”

“I did not mean it to be showy,” he answered.

She was well aware of that, but—­“Oh, David,” she cried, “that you should believe I needed it!  How little you must think of me!”

“Does it look as if I thought little of you?” he said.

“Little of my strength, David, little of my pride.”

“I think so much of them that how could I stand by silently and watch them go?”

“You think you have seen that!” She was agitated now.

He hesitated.  “Yes,” he said courageously.

Her eyes cried, “David, how could you be so cruel!” but they did not daunt him.

“Have you not seen it yourself, Grizel?” he said.

She pressed her hands together.  “I was so happy,” she said, “until you came!”

“Have you not seen it yourself?” he asked again.