‘Lily, whenever I come here you say that you are glad to see me?’

’And so I am—­very glad.  Only you would take it as meaning what it does not mean, I would tell you, that of all my friends living away from the reach of my daily life, you are the one whose coming is ever the most pleasant to me.’

‘Oh, Lily!’

’It was, I think, only yesterday that I was telling Grace that you are more like a brother to me than anyone else.  I wish it might be so.  I wish we might swear to be brother and sister.  I’d do more for you then than walk across the fields with you to Guestwick Cottage.  Your prosperity would then be the thing in the world for which I should be most anxious.  And if you should marry—­’

‘It can never be like that between us,’ said Johnny.

’Can it not?  I think it can.  Perhaps not this year, or next year; perhaps not in the next five years.  But I make myself happy with thinking that it may be so some day.  I shall wait for it patiently, very patiently, even though you should rebuff me again and again—­as you have done now.’

‘I have not rebuffed you.’

’Not maliciously, or injuriously, or offensively.  I will be very patient and take little rebuffs without complaining.  This is the worst of it all.  When Grace and I are together we can never manage it without tearing ourselves all to pieces.  It is much nicer to have you to help me.’

‘Let me help you always,’ he said, keeping her hands in his after he had aided her to jump from the stile to the ground.

‘Yes, as my brother.’

‘That is nonsense, Lily.’

‘Is it nonsense?  Nonsense is a hard word.’

’It is nonsense as coming from you to me.  Lily, I sometimes think that I am persecuting you, writing to you, coming after you, as I am doing now—­telling the same whining story—­asking, asking, and asking for that which you say you will never give me.  And then I feel ashamed of myself, and swear that I will do it no more.’

‘Do not be ashamed of yourself; but yet do it no more.’

‘And then,’ he continued, without minding her words, ’at other times I feel that it must be my own fault; that if I only persevered with sufficient energy, I must be successful.  At such times I swear I will never give it up.’

’Oh, John, if you could only know how little worthy of such pursuit it is.’

’Leave me to be the judge of that, dear.  When a man has taken a month, or perhaps only a week, or perhaps not more than half-an-hour, to make up his mind, it may be very well to tell him that he doesn’t know what he is about.  I’ve been in the office now for over seven years, and the first day I went I put an oath into a book that I would come back and get you for my wife when I had got enough to live upon.’

‘Did you, John?’

’Yes.  I can show it to you.  I used to come and hover about the place in the old days, before I went up to London, when I was such a fool that I couldn’t speak to you if I met you.  I am speaking of a time long before—­before that man came down here.’