“How can I answer you, Lady Laura?  Sufficient!  And you are not angry with me for what I have said?”

“No, I am not angry.  But it is understood, of course, that nothing of this shall ever be repeated,—­even among ourselves.  Is that a bargain?”

“Oh, yes.  I shall never speak of it again.”

“And now you will wish me joy?”

“I have wished you joy, Lady Laura.  And I will do so again.  May you have every blessing which the world can give you.  You cannot expect me to be very jovial for awhile myself; but there will be nobody to see my melancholy moods.  I shall be hiding myself away in Ireland.  When is the marriage to be?”

“Nothing has been said of that.  I shall be guided by him,—­but there must, of course, be delay.  There will be settlements and I know not what.  It may probably be in the spring,—­or perhaps the summer.  I shall do just what my betters tell me to do.”

Phineas had now seated himself on the exact stone on which he had wished her to sit when he proposed to tell his own story, and was looking forth upon the lake.  It seemed to him that everything had been changed for him while he had been up there upon the mountain, and that the change had been marvellous in its nature.  When he had been coming up, there had been apparently two alternatives before him:  the glory of successful love,—­which, indeed, had seemed to him to be a most improbable result of the coming interview,—­and the despair and utter banishment attendant on disdainful rejection.  But his position was far removed from either of these alternatives.  She had almost told him that she would have loved him had she not been poor,—­that she was beginning to love him and had quenched her love, because it had become impossible to her to marry a poor man.  In such circumstances he could not be angry with her,—­he could not quarrel with her; he could not do other than swear to himself that he would be her friend.  And yet he loved her better than ever;—­and she was the promised wife of his rival!  Why had not Donald Bean’s pony broken his neck?

“Shall we go down now?” she said.

“Oh, yes.”

“You will not go on by the lake?”

“What is the use?  It is all the same now.  You will want to be back to receive him in from shooting.”

“Not that, I think.  He is above those little cares.  But it will be as well we should go the nearest way, as we have spent so much of our time here.  I shall tell Mr. Kennedy that I have told you,—­if you do not mind.”

“Tell him what you please,” said Phineas.

“But I won’t have it taken in that way, Mr. Finn.  Your brusque want of courtesy to me I have forgiven, but I shall expect you to make up for it by the alacrity of your congratulations to him.  I will not have you uncourteous to Mr. Kennedy.”

“If I have been uncourteous I beg your pardon.”

“You need not do that.  We are old friends, and may take the liberty of speaking plainly to each other;—­but you will owe it to Mr. Kennedy to be gracious.  Think of the pony.”