’In the mean time you have heard what you never ought to have heard,—­or not for a long time; and through the same good agency other people have heard it too; and you are placed in a position almost to hate the sight of me, and shrink from the sound of my name; and you are looking upon your father’s will as binding you to a sort of slavery.  I am not going to stand this a minute longer.

’Hazel—­unless you can love me dearly, my privileges as guardian would be of no use to me.  I would not take advantage of them if I could.  I would not have you on any other terms.  And I certainly am not going to be a clog upon your happiness.  I have made up my mind to keep my office, nominally, for one year; practically I mean to leave you very much to Mr. Falkirk.  I will keep it for a year.  At the end of the year, you shall tell me whether I shall give it up or keep it longer.  But if longer, it will be for ever.  And I warn you, if you give it to me then, it will be a closer and sweeter guardianship than you have had yet, Hazel.  I will keep what I love, so dearly and absolutely as I love her.  But I shall not speak to you again on this subject until the year’s end.  You need not be afraid.  I mean to see you and to let you see me; but you will hear no more about this till the time comes.’

No answer, even then, only the trembling of the little hand.  Dark as it was, she turned her head yet more away, laying her other cheek upon the window.

‘Are we friends now?’ he said somewhat lower.

’Mr. Rollo’—­she began.  But the tremor had found its way to the girl’s voice, and she broke off short.

‘Well?’ said he.  ’That is one of the parties.  I meant, Mr. Rollo and Hazel.’

‘Be quiet!’ she said impatiently,—­’and let me speak.’  But what Hazel wanted to say, did not immediately appear.

He answered by a clasp of her hand, and waited.

’I am quiet,’—­he suggested at length.

The girl made a desperate effort, and lifted up her head, and sat back in her place, to answer; but managing her voice very much like spun glass, which might give way in the using; and evidently choosing her words with great care, every now and then just missing the wrong one.

‘You go on making statements,’ she said, catching her breath, ’and I—­have taken up none of them, because I cannot,—­because if,—­I mean, I have let them all pass, Mr. Rollo.’—­If truth demanded a greater sacrifice just then, it could not be because this one was small.

‘I know,’ he answered.  ’Will you do better now?  What mistake has your silence led me into, or left me in?’

’I said nothing about mistakes.  And I always do as well as I can at first,’ said Hazel, with a touch of the same impatience.

’My statements did not call for an answer.  But I am going to say some other things to which I do want an answer.  Shall I go on?’

‘You know what they are,’ she said.