“Do you know that it makes me half mad to see that look of distress in your eyes, to see the color fading out of your cheeks!  Katherine, I can’t hold my tongue any longer.  I thought I was far gone when I used to count the days between my visits to Sandbourne; I am a good deal worse now that you have let me be a sort of chum!  Life without you is something I don’t care to face, I don’t indeed!  Why don’t you make up your mind to take me for better for worse?  I’ll try to be all better; just think how happy we might be!  Those boys should have the best training money or care could get; and, Katherine, I’m not a bad fellow!  Now you know me better, you must feel that I should never be a bad fellow to you.”

“You are a very good fellow, Lord de Burgh, that I quite believe; but (it pains me so much to say it) I really do not love you as I ought, and, unless I do love I dare not marry.”

“Why not?—­that is, if you don’t love some other fellow.  Will you tell me if any man stands in my way?”

“No, indeed, Lord de Burgh; who could I love?”

“That is impossible to say; however, your word is enough.  If your heart is free, why not let me try to win it? and the opportunities afforded by matrimony are endless; you are the sort of woman who would be faithful to whatever you undertook, and when you saw me day by day living for you, and you only, you’d grow to love me!  Just think of the boys running wild at Pont-y garvan in the holidays, and——­By heaven, my head reels with such a dream of happiness.”

“I am a wretch, I know,” said Katherine, the tears in her eyes, her voice breaking; “but I know myself.  I am a very lawless individual, and—­you had better not urge me.”

“What is your objection to me?  I haven’t been a saint, but I have never done anything I am ashamed of.  Why do you shrink from life with me?  Come, cast your doubts to the winds, and give me your sweet self.  There is no one to love you as I do, and I swear your life shall be a summer holiday.”

His words struck her with sudden conviction.  It was true there was no one to love her as he did, and what a tower of refuge he would be to the boys!  Why should she not think of him?  He had been very true to her.  Why should she not drive out the haunting image of the man who did not love her by the living presence of the man who did?  But, if she accepted him, she must confess her crime; she could not keep such an act hidden from the man who was ready to give his life to her.  How awful this would be!  And he might reject her; then her fate would be decided for her.  Lord de Burgh saw that she hesitated, and pressed her eagerly for a decision.

“You deserve so much gratitude for your kindness, your faithfulness, that—­ah! do let me think,” covering up her face with her hands.  “It is such a tremendous matter to decide.”

“Yes, of course, you shall think as much as ever you like,” cried De Burgh, rapturously, telling himself “that she who deliberates is lost.”  “Take your own time, only don’t say no,” ferociously.  “Reflect on the immense happiness you can bestow, the good you can do.  Why do you shiver, my darling?  If you wish it, I’ll go now this moment, and I’ll not show my face till—­till the day after to-morrow, if you like.”