"Rachel," said Mr. Dalrymple presently, speaking her name as if he had had it in familiar use for years, "I suppose you have broken off with _him?_" Rachel did not reply for a few seconds; he felt her trembling in his arms. "Oh, forgive me," she whispered, turning her face a hair's-breadth nearer to his as he stooped to listen. And then she told him all the story of her engagement, as far as her new experiences enabled her to read it, and all the circumstances which had combined to keep her still in captivity so long after she should have been free. The simple narrative gave even him, who was rather inclined to make molehills of mountains, a sense of the difficulties of the situation, that kept him silent for a few minutes in unwonted perplexity of mind. "How old are you?" he asked abruptly, at last. "I shall be nineteen in three weeks," she answered. "You are sure you won't be twenty-one?" "I'm sure I shan't. Why?" "Because if you are only nineteen, I cannot carry you off and marry you, love, which would have been the simplest way out of it." "I should not like that way," whispered Rachel. "It would be a wrong way." "Yes, dear--except as a last resource. Of course we would try all the other ways first. But we must have our rights, you know. If they won't give them, we must take them--we must get them as we can." "Cannot we be married until I am twenty-one?" she queried timidly. "Not without your guardian's consent. Is there any chance of my getting that, or any kind of toleration even, if I call on him at his office to-morrow and use all the eloquence at my command?" "No. Aunt Elizabeth won't let _him_ have anything to do with it." "If I call on her, then?" "Oh, no--not the slightest. In the first place, she won't see you. And if she did--oh, no, you must not try--not yet! I think it would make everything worse than it is already." "Then you see the alternative?--a separation for perhaps two whole years." "If I know we are going to be so happy at the end of it----" "Ah--at the end of it! It will be a fine test for you, Rachel." "Why for me, any more than for you? Oh, don't talk of tests!" she pleaded; "I only want to feel sure I shall never lose you, and I don't mind waiting two years. If only----" "If only what?" "If only Mr. Kingston would go away!" "Now listen to me," he said gently, but with his grave peremptoriness, "you must not let another day pass without breaking off with him. You must _send_ him away, Rachel. I am sorry for him, poor devil, but you couldn't do him a worse wrong than let him go on deceiving himself about you." "Oh, do you think I would do that? Of course I will not. I can do it _now_--now that you have come. For now I shall feel strong, and now I can tell them why. I shall write him a letter before I go to bed, and I shall tell Aunt Elizabeth as soon as I have sent it. But what will they say to me? It will be dreadful."