“You shall not wrong those dear old days, Laetitia.  I see them now; when I rode by your cottage and you were at your window, pen in hand, your hair straying over your forehead.  Romantic, yes; not foolish.  Why were you foolish in thinking of me?  Some day I will commission an artist to paint me that portrait of you from my description.  And I remember when we first whispered . . .  I remember your trembling.  You have forgotten—­I remember.  I remember our meeting in the park on the path to church.  I remember the heavenly morning of my return from my travels, and the same Laetitia meeting me, stedfast and unchangeable.  Could I ever forget?  Those are ineradicable scenes; pictures of my youth, interwound with me.  I may say, that as I recede from them, I dwell on them the more.  Tell me, Laetitia, was there not a certain prophecy of your father’s concerning us two?  I fancy I heard of one.  There was one.”

“He was an invalid.  Elderly people nurse illusions.”

“Ask yourself Laetitia, who is the obstacle to the fulfilment of his prediction?—­truth, if ever a truth was foreseen on earth.  You have not changed so far that you would feel no pleasure in gratifying him?  I go to him to-morrow morning with the first light.”

“You will compel me to follow, and undeceive him.”

“Do so, and I denounce an unworthy affection you are ashamed to avow.”

“That would be idle, though it would be base.”

“Proof of love, then!  For no one but you should it be done, and no one but you dare accuse me of a baseness.”

“Sir Willoughby, you will let my father die in peace.”

“He and I together will contrive to persuade you.”

“You tempt me to imagine that you want a wife at any cost.”

“You, Laetitia, you.”

“I am tired,” she said.  “It is late, I would rather not hear more.  I am sorry if I have caused you pain.  I suppose you to have spoken with candour.  I defend neither my sex nor myself.  I can only say I am a woman as good as dead:  happy to be made happy in my way, but so little alive that I cannot realize any other way.  As for love, I am thankful to have broken a spell.  You have a younger woman in your mind; I am an old one:  I have no ambition and no warmth.  My utmost prayer is to float on the stream—­a purely physical desire of life:  I have no strength to swim.  Such a woman is not the wife for you, Sir Willoughby.  Good night.”

“One final word.  Weigh it.  Express no conventional regrets.  Resolutely you refuse?”

“Resolutely I do.”

“You refuse?”

“Yes.”

“I have sacrificed my pride for nothing!  You refuse?”

“Yes.”

“Humbled myself!  And this is the answer!  You do refuse?”

“I do.”

“Good night, Laetitia Dale.”

He gave her passage.

“Good night, Sir Willoughby.”

“I am in your power,” he said, in a voice between supplication and menace that laid a claw on her, and she turned and replied: