“Will you take this?” he said, half thrusting something forward.  “It is, perhaps, not much to some, but I would like you to have it; it seems fitting; I think I owe it to you, and you to it.”

“Oh, yes, yes,” she murmured, hardly hearing and not grasping the last words; there was something choking in her throat; it was this strange, humble, disinterested love, so new to her, which brought it there and prevented her from understanding.

She stretched out her hands, and he put something into them; then he stepped back, and the carriage drove on.  It was not till the gateway was passed that she realised what it was she held—­a small bag made of the greyish-brown paper used on a bulb farm; inside, a single bulb; and outside, written, according to the invariable custom of growers—­

     “Narcissus Triandrus Azureum Vrouw Van Heigen.”

CHAPTER XI

A REPRIEVE

Rawson-Clew was reading a letter.  It was breakfast time; the letter had missed the afternoon post yesterday, which was what the writer would have wished, and so was not delivered at the hotel till the morning.  It was short, from the beginning—­“I am so glad you have done it,” to the end of the postscript—­“this is to-morrow, so good-bye.”  There was not much to read; yet he looked at it for some time.  Did ever man receive such a refusal to an offer of marriage?  It was almost absurd, and perhaps hardly flattering, yet somehow characteristic of the writer; Rawson-Clew recognised that now, though it had surprised him none the less.  What was to be done next?  See the girl, he supposed, and hear what she proposed to do; she wrote that she had arranged “capitally,” but she did not say what.  He was quite certain she was not going to remain with the Van Heigens; if by some extraordinary accident she had been able to bring that about, she would certainly have told him so triumphantly.  He could not think of anything “capital” she could have arranged; he was persuaded, either that she only said it to reassure him, or else, if she believed it, it was in her ignorance of the extent of the damage done yesterday.  He must go and see her, hear what she had planned, and what further trouble she was thinking to get herself into, and prevent it in the only way possible; and there was only one way, there was absolutely no other solution of the difficulty; she must marry him, and there was an end of it.  He glanced at her refusal again, and liked it in spite of its absurdity; after all, perhaps it would have been better if he had been frank too; one could afford to dispense with the delicate conventions that he associated with women in dealing with this girl.  He wished he had gone to her and spoken freely, as man to man, saying plainly that since they had together been indiscreet, they must together take the consequence, and make the best of it—­and really the best might be very good.