“Stop a moment, Bell.  You need hardly have the candles before I go, and you need not begrudge my staying either, seeing that I shall be all alone at home.”

“Begrudge your staying!”

“But, however, you shall begrudge it, or else make me very welcome.”  He still held her by the wrist, which he had caught as he prevented her from summoning the servant.

“What do you mean?” said she.  “You know you are welcome to us as flowers in May.  You always were welcome; but now, when you have come to us in our trouble—­ At any rate, you shall never say that I turn you out.”

“Shall I never say so?” And still he held her by the wrist.  He had kept his chair throughout, but she was standing before him,—­between him and the fire.  But she, though he held her in this way, thought little of his words, or of his action.  They had known each other with great intimacy, and though Lily would still laugh at her, saying that Dr Crofts was her lover, she had long since taught herself that no such feeling as that would ever exist between them.

“Shall I never say so, Bell?  What if so poor a man as I ask for the hand that you will not give to so rich a man as your cousin Bernard?”

She instantly withdrew her arm and moved back very quickly a step or two across the rug.  She did it almost with the motion which she might have used had he insulted her; or had a man spoken such words who would not, under any circumstances, have a right to speak them.

“Ah, yes!  I thought it would be so,” he said.  “I may go now, and may know that I have been turned out.”

“What is it you mean, Dr Crofts?  What is it you are saying?  Why do you talk that nonsense, trying to see if you can provoke me?”

“Yes; it is nonsense.  I have no right to address you in that way, and certainly should not have done it now that I am in your house in the way of my profession.  I beg your pardon.”  Now he also was standing, but he had not moved from his side of the fireplace.  “Are you going to forgive me before I go?”

“Forgive you for what?” said she.

“For daring to love you; for having loved you almost as long as you can remember; for loving you better than all beside.  This alone you should forgive; but will you forgive me for having told it?”

He had made her no offer, nor did she expect that he was about to make one.  She herself had hardly yet realised the meaning of his words, and she certainly had asked herself no question as to the answer which she should give to them.  There are cases in which lovers present themselves in so unmistakable a guise, that the first word of open love uttered by them tells their whole story, and tells it without the possibility of a surprise.  And it is generally so when the lover has not been an old friend, when even his acquaintance has been of modern date.  It had been so essentially in the case of Crosbie and Lily Dale.  When Crosbie