Muriel started and glared at him. But he was 'fey,' and went on. 'You may well look! A foundling--a charity-boy! You love this sup--superfluous and probably illegitimate pauper, who----' 'O, you unmanly fool!' 'I say!' and he fell against the tree smitten by Muriel's thunder and lightning. The storm pealed on. 'I have read of men who spoke such cowardice, but I never thought to know one. How dare you talk of love? O the shame! Every wealthy fool can look at us, and love us, as they say, and whine to us--it _is_ a shame! What right have you to love me or think of me? If you ever wish to be worth a thought, or fit for his service whom you've slandered, go and found hospitals, endow scholarships--fling your wealth in the sea--only get rid of it! And plough the fields, break stones, dig ditches--some honest work your scanty brains are suited for; and when that has made you something of a man, go and beg his pardon. Go away from here, now, at once. He's waiting for me.' Dempster limped away. His works were all run down. Youth is cruel, and Muriel had meant to wound; but she felt a little remorseful at the sight of the abject creature she had scorched and scotched with such crude severity, and wished that she had at least spared him the last savage cut. To be called a fool and a coward--to be told to get rid of one's personality, is bad; but to be dismissed in order to make instant room for the other, partakes too much of hacking and slashing, and might even be put in the category with vitriol-throwing. Muriel looked over the wall and called Frank. He was waiting somewhere near, she knew; and he came and climbed over and kissed her. 'Where were you hiding?' she asked. 'I sat on a stone by the side of the wall, and meant to sit there till the voices ceased, or you called me.' 'Did you hear what we said?' 'No.' 'Well, it doesn't matter just now. I'll tell you some other time.' She sat down on the wall and bade him do the same. Dempster was forgotten: the stronger impression, that produced by Lee, came out through the more recent one like the original writing on a palimpsest. 'When one meets one's father,' she said, 'after a long absence, whether one knows him well or not, one's heart leaps, and a great thrill strikes through one.' 'Yes,' said Frank. 'I believe my nerves would ring to the sound of my father's voice if I were hearing it, though I've never seen him.' 'Don't imagine it for a moment, dear. When your father comes back after ten years you shiver in his presence--you feel as if you had jumped into a frosty sea out of the summer. I did when I went to him from you.' She kicked her heels against the wall, and sat on her hands, looking round and up at Frank like a bird. Then she turned her gaze into the tree. In the mood that held her, to think was to resolve. She came to her feet, and stood before her lover. 'What would you think if I were to tell you that my father had chosen a husband for me?'