Rose had suddenly fallen from her prattle, soft and short-breathed.

‘Then, dear,’ she went on, ’we shall have to fight the family.  Aunt Shorne will be terrible.  My poor uncles!  I pity them.  But they will come round.  They always have thought what I did was right, and why should they change their minds now?  I shall tell them that at their time of life a change of any kind is very unwise and bad for them.  Then there is Grandmama Bonner.  She can hurt us really, if she pleases.  Oh, my dear Evan! if you had only been a curate!  Why isn’t your name Parsley?  Then my Grandmama the Countess of Elburne.  Well, we have a Countess on our side, haven’t we?  And that reminds me, Evan, if we’re to be happy and succeed, you must promise one thing:  you will not tell the Countess, your sister.  Don’t confide this to her.  Will you promise?’

Evan assured her he was not in the habit of pouring secrets into any bosom, the Countess’s as little as another’s.

’Very well, then, Evan, it’s unpleasant while it lasts, but we shall gain the day.  Uncle Melville will give you an appointment, and then?’

‘Yes, Rose,’ he said, ’I will do this, though I don’t think you can know what I shall have to endure-not in confessing what I am, but in feeling that I have brought you to my level.’

‘Does it not raise me?’ she cried.

He shook his head.

’But in reality, Evan—­apart from mere appearances—­in reality it does! it does!’

’Men will not think so, Rose, nor can I. Oh, my Rose! how different you make me.  Up to this hour I have been so weak! torn two ways!  You give me double strength.’

Then these lovers talked of distant days—­compared their feelings on this and that occasion with mutual wonder and delight.  Then the old hours lived anew.  And—­did you really think that, Evan?  And—­Oh, Rose! was that your dream?  And the meaning of that by-gone look:  was it what they fancied?  And such and such a tone of voice; would it bear the wished interpretation?  Thus does Love avenge himself on the unsatisfactory Past and call out its essence.

Could Evan do less than adore her?  She knew all, and she loved him!  Since he was too shy to allude more than once to his letter, it was natural that he should not ask her how she came to know, and how much the ‘all’ that she knew comprised.  In his letter he had told all; the condition of his parents, and his own.  Honestly, now, what with his dazzled state of mind, his deep inward happiness, and love’s endless delusions, he abstained from touching the subject further.  Honestly, therefore, as far as a lover can be honest.

So they toyed, and then Rose, setting her fingers loose, whispered:  ’Are you ready?’ And Evan nodded; and Rose, to make him think light of the matter in hand, laughed:  ‘Pluck not quite up yet?’

‘Quite, my Rose!’ said Evan, and they walked to the house, not quite knowing what they were going to do.