‘Yes; but you do care for me a good deal, darling, do you not?’ in a most persuasive voice.  ’But, for my own comfort, I want you to tell me if you are quite content to accept such a crabbed old bachelor for your husband.’

It was a little difficult to answer, but I made him understand that I looked upon him in a very different light, and I think I managed to content him.

‘And you are really happy, dear?’

‘Yes, very happy’; but the tears were in my eyes as I answered.  He seemed distressed to see them, and wanted me to tell him the reason; but I think he understood me thoroughly when I whispered how glad Charlie would have been.  I asked him presently how long he had cared for me, but, to my surprise, he declared that he hardly knew himself:  he had been interested in me from the first hour of our meeting, but it was when he heard me sing in Phoebe Locke’s room that the thought came to him that he must try and win me for his wife.

I think it was in answer to this that I said some foolish word about my want of beauty.  I was a little sensitive on the subject, but, to my dismay, Giles’s face darkened, and he dropped my hand.

‘Never say that to me again, if you love me, Ursula,’ he said, in such a grieved voice that I could hardly bear to hear it.  ’Do you think I would have married you if you had been handsome?  Do you know what you are talking about, child?  Has no one told you about Ella?’

‘Oh yes,’ I returned, terrified at his sternness, for he had never spoken to me in such a tone before.  ’Yes, indeed, and I know she was very beautiful.’

’She was perfectly lovely,’—­in the same hard voice.  Oh, how he must have suffered, my poor Giles!  ’And the memory of that false loveliness has made me loathe the idea of beauty ever since.  No, I would never have let myself love you if you had been handsome, Ursula.’

‘I am glad I am not,’ I returned, in a choked voice, for all this was very painful to me.  Something in my tone attracted his notice, for he stooped and looked in my face, and his manner instantly changed.

‘Oh, you foolish child,’ very caressingly, ’there are actually tears in your eyes!  You are not afraid of me, Ursula?  I am always excited when I speak of Ella:  she very nearly destroyed my faith in women.’

‘I cannot bear to think how you suffered,’ I faltered, but he would not let me finish.

’Never mind; you have been my healer; you have always rested me so.  Never call yourself plain again in my hearing.  No other face could be half so dear to me.’  And then, with his old smile, ’Do you know, dear, when I saw you in that velvet gown at your cousin’s wedding you looked so handsome that I went home in a bad humour, and then Etta told me about Tudor.  Well, I have you safe now.’  But I will not transcribe all Giles’s speech; it was so lover-like, it made me understand, once for all, what I was to him, and how little he cared for life unless I shared it with him.