’Miss Vine, I wanted you to come to Epping Forest to-morrow because I thought I should have a chance of a little talk.  I don’t mean that was the only reason; it’s too bad you never get a holiday, and I should like it to a’ done you good.  But I thought I might a’ found a chance o’ sayin’ something, something I’ve thought of a long time, and that’s the honest truth.  I want to help you and your sister and the young ’uns, but you most of all.  I don’t like to see you livin’ such a hard life, ’cause you deserve something better, if ever anyone did.  Now will you let me help you?  There’s only one way, and it’s the way I’d like best of any.  The long an’ the short of it is, I want to ask you if you’ll come an’ live at the ’ouse, come and bring Mrs. Clay an’ the children?’

Emma looked at him in surprise and felt uncertain of his meaning, though his speech had painfully prepared her with an answer.

’I’d do my right down best to make you a good ’usband, that I would, Emma!’ Daniel hurried on, getting flustered.  ’Perhaps I’ve been a bit too sudden?  Suppose we leave it till you’ve had time to think over?  It’s no good talking to you about money an’ that kind o’ thing; you’d marry a poor man as soon as a rich, if only you cared in the right way for him.  I won’t sing my own praises, but I don’t think you’d find much to complain of in me.  I’d never ask you to go into the bar, ’cause I know you ain’t suited for that, and, what’s more, I’d rather you didn’t.  Will you give it a thought?’

It was modest enough, and from her knowledge of the man Emma felt that he was to be trusted for more than his word.  But he asked an impossible thing.  She could not imagine herself consenting to marry any man, but the reasons why she could not marry Daniel Dabbs were manifold.  She felt them all, but it was only needful to think of one.

Yet it was a temptation, and the hour of it might have been chosen.  With a scarcity of food for the morrow, with dark fears for her sister, suffering incessantly on the children’s account, Emma might have been pardoned if she had taken the helping hand.  But the temptation, though it unsteadied her brain for a moment, could never have overcome her.  She would have deemed it far less a crime to go out and steal a loaf from the baker’s shop than to marry Daniel because he offered rescue from destitution.

She refused him, as gently as she could, but with firmness which left him no room for misunderstanding her.  Daniel was awed by her quiet sincerity.

‘But I can wait,’ he stammered; ’if you’d take time to think it over?’

Useless; the answer could at no time be other.

‘Well, I’ve no call to grumble,’ he said.  ’You say straight out what you mean.  No woman can do fairer than that.’

His thought recurred for a moment to Alice, whose fault had been that she was ever ambiguous.

’It’s hard to bear.  I don’t think I shall ever care to marry any other woman.  But you’re doin’ the right thing and the honest thing; I wish all women was like you.’