’It is disagreeable to me very, to have any such subject talked about at all.  What would you think if I began to pay you foolish personal compliments?’

’What I say isn’t foolish; and there’s a great difference.  Clara, I love you better than all the world put together.’

She now looked at him; but still she did not believe it.  It could not be that after all her boastings she should have made so gross a blunder.  ‘I hope you do love me,’ she said; ’indeed, you are bound to do so, for you promised that you would be my brother.’

’But that will not satisfy me now, Clara.  Clara, I want to be your husband.’

‘Will!’ she exclaimed.

’Now you know it all; and if I have been too sudden, I must beg your pardon.’

’Oh, Will, forget that you have said this.  Do not go on until everything must be over between us.’

’Why should anything be over between us?  Why should it be wrong in me to love you?’

‘What will papa say?’

’Mr Amedroz knows all about it already, and has given me his consent.  I asked him directly I had made up my own mind, and he told me that I might go to you.’

‘You have asked papa?  Oh dear, oh dear, what am I to do?’

‘Am I so odious to you then?’ As he said this he got up from his seat and stood before her.  He was a tall, well-built, handsome man, and he could assume a look and mien that were almost noble when he was moved as he was moved now.

’Odious!  Do you not know that I have loved you as my cousin that I have already learned to trust you as though you were really my brother?  But this breaks it all.’

‘You cannot love me then as my wife?’

‘No.’  She pronounced the monosyllable alone, and then he walked away from her as though that one little word settled the question for him, now and for ever.  He walked away from her, perhaps a distance of two hundred yards, as though the interview was over, and he were leaving her.  She, as she saw him go, wished that he would return that she might say some word of comfort to him.  Not that she could have said the only word that would have comforted him.  At the first blush of the thing, at the first sound of the address which he had made to her, she had been angry with him.  He had disappointed her, and she was indignant.  But her anger had already melted and turned itself to ruth.  She could not but love him better, in that he had loved her so well; but yet she could not love him with the love which he desired.

But he did not leave her.  When he had gone from her down the hill the distance that has been named, he turned back and came up to her slowly.  He had a trick of standing and walking with his thumbs fixed into the armholes of his waistcoat, while his large hands rested on his breast.  He would always assume this attitude when he was assured that he was right in his views, and was eager to carry some point at issue.  Clara already understood that this attitude signified his intention to be autocratic.  He now came close up to her and again stood over her, before he spoke.  ‘My dear,’ he said, ’I have been rough and hasty in what I have said to you, and I have to ask you to pardon my want of manners.’