He smiled.

‘Yes.  But then you see—­you were you!’

She sprang up, looking down upon him, as he sat by the fire.  ’That’s just it.  If I were another person!  But no!—­no!  I can’t be your friend.  I’m not old enough—­or clever enough.  And I can’t ever be anything else.’

‘Why?’ He asked it very quietly, his eyes raised to hers.  He could see the quick beat of her breath under her black dress.

’Because I’m not my own.  I’m not free—­you know I’m not.  I’m not free legally—­and I’m not free in heart.  Oh, if George were to come in at that door!’—­she threw back her head with a passionate gesture—­’there would be nobody else in the world for me—­nobody—­nobody!’

He stooped over the fire, fidgeting with it, so that his face was hidden from her.

’You know, I think, that if I believed there was the faintest hope of that, I should never have said a word—­of my own feelings.  But as it is—­why must you feel bound to break up this—­this friendship, which means so much to us all?  What harm is there in it?  Time will clear up a great deal.  I’ll hold my tongue—­I promise you.  I won’t bother you.  I won’t speak of it again—­for a year—­or more—­if you wish.  But—­don’t forsake us!’

He looked up with that smile which in Cicely’s unbiased opinion gave him such an unfair advantage over womankind.

With a little sob, Nelly walked away towards the window, which was still uncurtained though the night had fallen.  Outside there was a starry deep of sky, above Wetherlam and the northern fells.  The great shapes held the valley in guard; the river windings far below seemed still to keep the sunset; while here and there shone scattered lights in farms and cottages, sheltering the old, old life of the dales.

Insensibly Nelly’s passionate agitation began to subside.  Had she been filling her own path with imaginary perils and phantoms?  Yet there echoed in her mind the low-spoken words—­’I won’t deceive you!  I love you!’ And the recollection both frightened and touched her.

Presently Farrell spoke again, quite in his usual voice.

’I shall be in despair if you leave me to tackle Cicely alone.  She’s been perfectly mad lately.  But you can put it all right if you choose.’

Nelly was startled into turning back towards him.

‘Oh!—­how can I?’

’Tell her she has been behaving abominably, and making a good fellow’s life a burden to him.  Scold her!  Laugh at her!’

‘What has she been doing?’ said Nelly, still standing by the window.

Farrell launched into a racy and elaborate account—­the effort of one determined, coute que coute, to bring the conversation back to an ordinary key—­of Cicely’s proceedings, during the ten days since Nelly had seen her.

It appeared that Marsworth, after many weeks during which they had heard nothing of him, had been driven north again to his Carton doctor, by a return of neuralgic trouble in his wounded arm; and as usual had put up at the Rectory, where as usual Miss Daisy, the Rector’s granddaughter, had ministered to him like the kind little brick she was.