’Rose, I have been thinking.  It is not too late.  I love you, God knows!  I did in Portugal:  I do now—­more and more.  But Oh, my bright angel!’ he ended the sentence in his breast.

‘Well? but—­what?’

Evan sounded down the meaning of his ‘but.’  Stripped of the usual heroics, it was, ‘what will be thought of me?’ not a small matter to any of us.  He caught a distant glimpse of the little bit of bare selfishness, and shrank from it.

‘Too late,’ cried Rose.  ’The battle has commenced now, and, Mr. Harrington, I will lean on your arm, and be led to my dear friends yonder.  Do they think that I am going to put on a mask to please them?  Not for anybody!  What they are to know they may as well know at once.’

She looked in Evan’s face.

‘Do you hesitate?’

He felt the contrast between his own and hers; between the niggard spirit of the beggarly receiver, and the high bloom of the exalted giver.  Nevertheless, he loved her too well not to share much of her nature, and wedding it suddenly, he said: 

’Rose; tell me, now.  If you were to see the place where I was born, could you love me still?’

‘Yes, Evan.’

‘If you were to hear me spoken of with contempt—­’

‘Who dares?’ cried Rose.  ‘Never to me!’

’Contempt of what I spring from, Rose.  Names used . . .  Names are used . . .’

‘Tush!—­names!’ said Rose, reddening.  ’How cowardly that is!  Have you finished?  Oh, faint heart!  I suppose I’m not a fair lady, or you wouldn’t have won me.  Now, come.  Remember, Evan, I conceal nothing; and if anything makes you wretched here, do think how I love you.’

In his own firm belief he had said everything to arrest her in her course, and been silenced by transcendent logic.  She thought the same.

Rose made up to the conclave under the maple.

The voices hushed as they approached.

‘Capital weather,’ said Rose.  ’Does Harry come back from London to-morrow—­does anybody know?’

‘Not aware,’ Laxley was heard to reply.

‘I want to speak a word to you, Rose,’ said Mrs. Shorne.

‘With the greatest pleasure, my dear aunt’:  and Rose walked after her.

‘My dear Rose,’ Mrs. Shorne commenced, ’your conduct requires that I should really talk to you most seriously.  You are probably not aware of what you are doing:  Nobody likes ease and natural familiarity more than I do.  I am persuaded it is nothing but your innocence.  You are young to the world’s ways, and perhaps a little too headstrong, and vain.’

‘Conceited and wilful,’ added Rose.

’If you like the words better.  But I must say—­I do not wish to trouble your father—­you know he cannot bear worry—­but I must say, that if you do not listen to me, he must be spoken to.’

‘Why not Mama?’

‘I should naturally select my brother first.  No doubt you understand me.’