’I never asked for any such thing!  I would not for worlds see her led to do anything underhand.’

‘She will honour you!  That’s right, Jem!’

’Neither as a clergyman, nor as a Dynevor, can I consent to trick even those who have no claim to her duty!’

‘Neither as a gentleman, nor as a human creature,’ added Louis, in the same tone.  ‘Shall I go back and give your answer?’

‘No; you are walking lame enough already.’

‘No matter for that.’

’To tell you the truth, I can’t stand your being with her again, while I am made a fool of by that woman.  If I’m not to see her, I’ll be off.  I’ll send her a note; we will cross to Bickleypool, and start by the mail-train this very night.’

Louis made no objection, and James hurried him into the little parlour, where in ten minutes the note was dashed off:—­

My Own Most Precious One!—­(as, thanks to my most unselfish of cousins, I may dare to call you,)—­I regret my fervency and urgency for an interview, since it led you to think I could purchase even such happiness by a subterfuge unworthy of my calling, and an ill return of the hospitality to which we owed our first meeting.  We will meet when I claim you in the face of day, without the sense of stolen felicity, which is a charm to common-place minds.  My glory is in the assurance that you understand my letter, approve, and are relieved.  With such sanction, and with ardour before you like mine, I see that you could do no other than consent, and there is not a shadow of censure in my mind; but if, without compromising your sense of obedience, you could openly avow our engagement to Mr. Mansell, I own that I should feel that we were not drawn into a compromise of sincerity.  What this costs me I will not say; it will be bare existence till we meet at Scarborough. 
                                       ‘Your own, J. E. F. D.’

Having written this and deposited it in the Ebbscreek post-office, James bethought himself that his submissive cousin had thrown himself on the floor, with his bag for a pillow, trying to make the most of the few moments of rest before the midnight journey.  Seized with compunction, James exclaimed, ’There, old fellow, we will stay to-night.’

‘Thank you—­’ He was too sleepy for more.

The delay was recompensed.  James was trying to persuade Louis to rouse himself to be revived by bread-and-cheese and beer, and could extort nothing but a drowsy repetition of the rhyme, in old days the war-cry of the Grammar-school against the present headmaster,—­

     ’The Welshman had liked to be choked by a mouse,
      But he pulled him out by the tail,’—­

when an alarum came in the shape of a little grinning boy from Beauchastel, with a note on which James had nearly laid hands, as he saw the writing, though the address was to the Viscount Fitzjocelyn.

‘You may have it,’ said Louis.  ’If anything were wanting, the coincidence proves that you were cut out for one another.  I rejoice that the moon does not stoop from her sphere.’