‘What man?’ asked Dorothy, in perfect innocence.

‘Mr Gibson, to be sure.  I don’t know that there is anybody else.’

’Oh, Mr Gibson.  He never comes here now, and I don’t suppose he will again.  Aunt Stanbury is so very angry with him.’

’I don’t care whether he comes or not.  What I mean is this.  When I was here before, I was told that you were going to marry him.’

‘But I wasn’t.’

’How was I to know that, when you didn’t tell me?  I certainly did know it after I came back from Dartmoor.’  He paused a moment, as though she might have a word to say.  She had no word to say, and did not in the least know what was coming.  She was so far from anticipating the truth, that she was composed and easy in her mind.  ’But all that is of no use at all,’ he continued.  ’When I was here before Miss Stanbury wanted you to marry Mr Gibson; and, of course, I had nothing to say about it.  Now I want you to marry me.’

‘Mr Burgess!’

’Dorothy, my darling, I love you better than all the world.  I do, indeed.’  As soon as he had commenced his protestations he became profuse enough with them, and made a strong attempt to support them by the action of his hands.  But she retreated from him step by step, till she had regained her chair by the tea-table, and there she seated herself safely, as she thought; but he was close to her, over her shoulder, still continuing his protestations, offering up his vows, and imploring her to reply to him.  She, as yet, had not answered him by a word, save by that one half-terrified exclamation of his name.  ’Tell me, at any rate, that you believe me, when I assure you that I love you,’ he said.  The room was going round with Dorothy, and the world was going round, and there had come upon her so strong a feeling of the disruption of things in general, that she was at the moment anything but happy.  Had it been possible for her to find that the last ten minutes had been a dream, she would at this moment have wished that it might become one.  A trouble had come upon her, out of which she did not see her way.  To dive among the waters in warm weather is very pleasant; there is nothing pleasanter.  But when the young swimmer first feels the thorough immersion of his plunge, there comes upon him a strong desire to be quickly out again.  He will remember afterwards how joyous it was; but now, at this moment, the dry land is everything to him.  So it was with Dorothy.  She had thought of Brooke Burgess as one of those bright ones of the world, with whom everything is happy and pleasant, whom everybody loves, who may have whatever they please, whose lines have been laid in pleasant places.  She thought of him as a man who might some day make some woman very happy as his wife.  To be the wife of such a man was, in Dorothy’s estimation, one of those blessed chances which come to some women, but which she never regarded as being within her own reach.  Though she had thought much about him, she had never thought of him as a possible possession for herself; and now that he was offering himself to her, she was not at once made happy by his love.  Her ideas of herself and of her life were all dislocated for the moment, and she required to be alone, that she might set herself in order, and try herself all over, and find whether her bones were broken.’say that you believe me,’ he repeated.