She moved automatically towards her uncle’s chair against the writing-table, and Will, after drawing it out a little for her, went a few paces off and stood opposite to her.

“Pray sit down,” said Dorothea, crossing her hands on her lap; “I am very glad you were here.”  Will thought that her face looked just as it did when she first shook hands with him in Rome; for her widow’s cap, fixed in her bonnet, had gone off with it, and he could see that she had lately been shedding tears.  But the mixture of anger in her agitation had vanished at the sight of him; she had been used, when they were face to face, always to feel confidence and the happy freedom which comes with mutual understanding, and how could other people’s words hinder that effect on a sudden?  Let the music which can take possession of our frame and fill the air with joy for us, sound once more—­what does it signify that we heard it found fault with in its absence?

“I have sent a letter to Lowick Manor to-day, asking leave to see you,” said Will, seating himself opposite to her.  “I am going away immediately, and I could not go without speaking to you again.”

“I thought we had parted when you came to Lowick many weeks ago—­ you thought you were going then,” said Dorothea, her voice trembling a little.

“Yes; but I was in ignorance then of things which I know now—­ things which have altered my feelings about the future.  When I saw you before, I was dreaming that I might come back some day.  I don’t think I ever shall—­now.”  Will paused here.

“You wished me to know the reasons?” said Dorothea, timidly.

“Yes,” said Will, impetuously, shaking his head backward, and looking away from her with irritation in his face.  “Of course I must wish it.  I have been grossly insulted in your eyes and in the eyes of others.  There has been a mean implication against my character.  I wish you to know that under no circumstances would I have lowered myself by—­ under no circumstances would I have given men the chance of saying that I sought money under the pretext of seeking—­something else.  There was no need of other safeguard against me—­the safeguard of wealth was enough.”

Will rose from his chair with the last word and went—­he hardly knew where; but it was to the projecting window nearest him, which had been open as now about the same season a year ago, when he and Dorothea had stood within it and talked together.  Her whole heart was going out at this moment in sympathy with Will’s indignation:  she only wanted to convince him that she had never done him injustice, and he seemed to have turned away from her as if she too had been part of the unfriendly world.

“It would be very unkind of you to suppose that I ever attributed any meanness to you,” she began.  Then in her ardent way, wanting to plead with him, she moved from her chair and went in front of him to her old place in the window, saying, “Do you suppose that I ever disbelieved in you?”