“Not at all.  The despotic old lady shuts her doors against you because she is afraid of you.”

“What have I to urge except that I love her?”

“The best of pleas.  Don’t fear too much.  Give her leave to love you by avowing your love—­that is what a girl waits for:  if you let her go back to Woldshire without an understanding between yourselves, she will think you care for your own pride more than for her.”

“I wish she were little Bessie at Beechhurst again, and all her finery blown to the winds.  I have not seen her for five days.”

“That must be your own fault.  You don’t want an ambassador?  If you do, there’s the post.”

Harry was silent again.  He was chiefly raising objections for the pleasure of hearing them contradicted; of course he was not aware of half the objections that might have been cited against him as an aspirant to the hand of Miss Fairfax.  In the depth of his heart there was a tenacious conviction that Bessie Fairfax loved him best in the world—­with a love that had grown with her growth and strengthened with her strength, and would maintain itself independent of his failure or success in life.  But oh, that word failure!  It touched him with a dreadful chill.  He turned pale at it, and resolutely averted his mind from the idea.

He left young Christie with as little ceremony as he had rejoined him, and walked home to Brook, entering the garden from the wood.  The first sight that met him was Bessie Fairfax standing alone under the beeches.  At the moment he thought it was an illusion, for she was all in bluish-gray amongst the shadows; but at the sound of the gate she turned quickly and came forward to meet him.

“I was just beginning to feel disappointed,” said she impulsively.  “Lady Latimer brought me over to say good-bye, and we were told you had gone to Littlemire.  She is in the sitting-room with your mother.  I came out here.”

Harry’s face flushed so warmly that he had no need to express his joy in words.  What a lucky event it was that he had met Mr. Wiley, and had been turned back from his visit to his old tutor!  He was fatigued with excitement and his hurried walk, and he invited Bessie to sit with him under the beeches where they used to sit watching the little stream as it ran by at their feet.  Bessie was nothing loath—­she was thinking that this was the last time they should meet for who could tell how long—­and she complied with all her old child-like submission to him, and a certain sweet appealing womanly dignity, which, without daunting Harry at all, compelled him to remember that she was not any longer a child.

The young people were not visible from the sitting-room.  Lady Latimer’s head was turned another way when Harry and Bessie met, but the instant she missed her young charge she got up and looked out of the lattice.  The boles and sweeping branches of the great beeches hid the figures at their feet, and Mrs. Musgrave, observing that dear Bessie was very fond of the manor-garden, and had probably strolled into the wilderness, my lady accepted the explanation and resumed her seat and her patience.