“You mean—­” began Richard, eagerly.

“No matter whom I mean.  It was not he who met me; that was you.”

The hand which he held in his was cold as ice; her face was pale; and her limbs trembled under her.

“This is folly, Harry dear.  Am I likely to do you harm, to make you miserable?”

“I do not know,” said she.  “I sometimes think you are.”

He put the long hair back from her forehead, and gazed into her eyes, which were now fast filling with tears.  “I love you, Harry, with all my heart,” sighed he—­“you know I do.  And, though you are sometimes cold, and at others seem as though you purposely avoided me, I think you love me—­just a little—­too.  Better, at all events, than the man with whom you yourself have just confessed you expect nothing but misery.”

“Hush, hush!” moaned she.  “If I said that, it was very wrong.”

“It was the truth, Harry.  How could it be otherwise?  He is not a lover meet for such as you; he is twice your age, and rough and rude of speech even as a suitor.  Do you think he will be more tender when he is a husband?  He is no mate for you, Harry, nor you for him.”

Again she shook her head, with a slow mournful movement, as though less in dissent from his statement than in despair of remedy.

“What!” cried he, “because his father was your father’s friend, does that give him the right to be your husband?”

The young girl answered only with her sobs.

“Now tell me, darling—­did you ever promise to be this man’s wife in words?”

“Yes—­no—­I am not sure.  Oh yes, I must be his; my father has set his mind upon it.  Nay, do not smile at that; you don’t know what my father is.  He is not one to cross;” and, as if at the very thought of her stern parent’s wrath, she lifted up her head from Richard’s breast, and looked around in fear.

“But suppose I win him to my side, sweet Harry?”

“That you could never do,” sighed she.  “I tell you you don’t know him.”

“Nay; but I think I do, dear; and, if I could show him that it was to his own advantage to have me for his son-in-law, in place of—­”

“You would not persuade him,” interrupted the young girl, firmly—­“not even if you were Carew of Crompton’s heir.”

The words she had used were meant to express exhaustless wealth—­for with such was the owner of Gethin still credited in that far-away corner of his possession—­but they startled and offended Richard.  “I may not be Carew’s heir,” said he, haughtily; “but I have some power at Crompton, and I can exert it in your father’s favor.”

Harry shook her head.  “He wants for nothing,” she said, “that you can give him.  He is wealthier than you imagine.  He has two thousand pounds in notes, for which he has no use; they lie in the strong-box in my room.  But there, I promised not to speak of that.”

“I am not a burglar in disguise,” said Richard, smiling, “and would make your father richer rather than rob him.  But why should he keep so large a sum by him?”