A man said, “Then I have your answer?”

A woman said, “Yes; yes.”

“You will not trust to my pledged honour?”

“Pardon me; not that.  I will not live in disgrace.”

“When I promise, on my soul, that the moment I am free I will set you right before the world?”

“Oh! pardon me.”

“You will?”

“No; no!  I cannot.”

“You choose to give yourself to an obscure dog, who’ll ill-treat you, and for whom you don’t care a pin’s-head; and why? that you may be fenced from gossip, and nothing more.  I thought you were a woman above that kind of meanness.  And this is a common countryman.  How will you endure that kind of life?  You were made for elegance and happiness:  you shall have it.  I met you before your illness, when you would not listen to me:  I met you after.  I knew you at once.  Am I changed?  I swear to you I have dreamed of you ever since, and love you.  Be as faded as you like; be hideous, if you like; but come with me.  You know my name, and what I am.  Twice I have followed you, and found your name and address; twice I have written to you, and made the same proposal.  And you won’t trust to my honour?  When I tell you I love you tenderly?  When I give you my solemn assurance that you shall not regret it?  You have been deceived by one man:  why punish me?  I know—­I feel you are innocent and good.  This is the third time that you have permitted me to speak to you:  let it be final.  Say you will trust yourself to me—­trust in my honour.  Say it shall be to-morrow.  Yes; say the word.  To-morrow.  My sweet creature—­do!”

The man spoke earnestly, but a third person and extraneous hearer could hardly avoid being struck by the bathetic conclusion.  At least, in tone it bordered on a fall; but the woman did not feel it so.

She replied:  “You mean kindly to me, sir.  I thank you indeed, for I am very friendless.  Oh! pardon me:  I am quite—­quite determined.  Go—­pray, forget me.”

This was Dahlia’s voice.

Robert was unconscious of having previously suspected it.  Heartily ashamed of letting his ears be filled with secret talk, he went from the garden and crossed the street.

He knew this to be one of the temptations of young women in London.

Shortly after, the man came through the iron gateway of the garden.  He passed under lamplight, and Robert perceived him to be a gentleman in garb.

A light appeared in the windows of the house.  Now that he had heard her voice, the terrors of his interview were dispersed, and he had only plain sadness to encounter.  He knocked at the door quietly.  There was a long delay after he had sent in his name; but finally admission was given.

“If I had loved her!” groaned Robert, before he looked on her; but when he did look on her, affectionate pity washed the selfish man out of him.  All these false sensations, peculiar to men, concerning the soiled purity of woman, the lost innocence; the brand of shame upon her, which are commonly the foul sentimentalism of such as can be too eager in the chase of corruption when occasion suits, and are another side of pruriency, not absolutely foreign to the best of us in our youth—­all passed away from him in Dahlia’s presence.